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THE TEMPEST. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSES. 



Rev. HENRY N. HUDSON, 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE SCHOOL OF ORATORY, 
BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 



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BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH. 

1879. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Cushing &* Bramkall, Printers, Boston. 



INTRODUCTION. 



State of the Text. 

THE TEMPEST is one of the plays that were never 
printed till in the folio of 1623 ; where, for reasons 
unknown to us, it stands the first in the division of Comedies, 
and the first in the volume, though it was undoubtedly among 
the latest of the Poet's works. 

The play is badly printed, considerably worse than most 
of the plays first printed in that volume ; though not so badly 
as All's Well that Ends Well, Tim on of Athens, and Corio- 
lanus. Besides many slighter errors, not very difficult of 
correction, it has a number of passages that are troublesome 
in the highest degree, and some that have hitherto baffled 
the most persevering and painstaking efforts to bring them 
into a satisfactory state ; insomuch that they should, per- 
haps, be left untouched, as hopelessly incurable. Still I 
suppose it would hardly do to give up the cause on the plea 
that the resources of corrective art have here been exhausted : 
so I have, though without any great confidence of success, 
ventured to try my hand on several of them, and, after many 
years of careful study, have done the best I could with them. 
The details of the matter are, I believe, fully presented in the 
Critical Notes, and therefore need not be further enlarged 
upon here. It will be seen that I have adopted several new 

3 



4 THE TEMPEST. 

readings recently proposed by eminent contemporary Shake- 
spearians ; and in these, as I can hardly have any self-par- 
tiality to warp my judgment, so I feel more confident as to 
the result. 

Date of the Writing 1 . 

It has been ascertained beyond question that The Tempest 
was written at some time between the years 1603 and 16 13. 
On the one hand, the leading features of Gonzalo's Common- 
wealth, as described in Act ii., Scene 1, were evidently taken 
from John Florio's translation of Montaigne, which was pub- 
lished in 1603. As the passage is curious in itself, and as it 
aptly illustrates the Poet's method of appropriating from 
others, I subjoin it together with the original : — 

Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, 

And were the King on't, what would I do ? 

I* the commonwealth I would by contraries 

Execute all things : for no kind of traffic 

Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; 

Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, 

And use of service, none ; contract, succession, 

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; 

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 

No occupation ; all men idle, all, 

And women too, but innocent and pure ; 

No sovereignty : 

All things in common Nature should produce 

Without sweat or endeavour : treason, felony, 

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, 

Would I not have ; but Nature should bring forth, 

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, 

To feed my innocent people. 

I would with such perfection govern, sir, 

T' excel the golden age. 

In Montaigne's essay Of the Cannibals, as translated by 
Florio, we have the following : " Meseemeth that what in 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

those nations we see by experience doth not only exceed all 
the pictures wherewith licentious Poesy hath proudly embel- 
lished the golden age, and all her quaint inventions to feign 
a happy condition of man,- but also the conception and de- 
sire of Philosophy. It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that 
hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelli- 
gence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic 
superiority ; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty ; no 
contracts, no successions, no dividences ; no occupation, but 
idle ; no respect of kindred, but common ; no apparel but 
natural ; no manuring of lands ; no use of wine, corn, or 
metal : the very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, 
dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon, 
were never heard amongst them." 

Here the borrowing is too plain to be questioned ; and 
this fixes the writing of The Tempest after 1603. On the 
other hand, Malone ascertained from some old records that 
the play was acted by the King's players "before Prince 
Charles, the Princess Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine, in 
the beginning of 16 13." 

But the time of writing is to be gathered more nearly from 
another source. The play has several points clearly connect- 
ing with some of the then recent marvels of Transatlantic 
discovery : in fact, I suspect America may justly claim to 
have borne a considerable part in suggesting and shaping 
this delectable workmanship. In May, 1609, Sir George 
Somers, with a fleet of nine ships, headed by the Sea- 
Venture, which was called the Admiral's Ship, sailed for 
Virginia. In mid-ocean they were struck by a terrible tem- 
pest, which scattered the whole fleet ; seven of the ships, 
however, reached Virginia ; but the Sea- Venture was parted 
from the rest, driven out of her course, and finally wrecked 



6 THE TEMPEST. 

on one of the Bermudas. These islands were then thought 
to be " a most prodigious and enchanted place, affording 
nothing but gusts, storms, and foul weather " ; on which 
account they had acquired a bad name, as " an enchanted 
pile of rocks, and a desert inhabitation of devils." 

In 1610 appeared a pamphlet entitled A Discovery of the 
Bermudas, otherwise called the Isle of Devils, giving an ac- 
count of the storm and shipwreck. The sailors had worked 
themselves into complete exhaustion, had given over in de- 
spair, and taken leave of each other, when the ship was 
found to be jammed in between two rocks, so that all came 
safe to land. They found the island uninhabited, the air 
mild and wholesome, the land exceedingly fruitful; " all the 
fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birds, and all the devils 
that haunted the woods were but herds of swine." Staying 
there some nine months, they had a very delightful time of it, 
refitted their ship, and then put to sea again, with an ample 
supply of provisions, and their minds richly freighted with 
the beauties and wonders of the place. 

There can be no rational doubt that from this narrative 
Shakespeare took various hints for the matter of his drama. 
Thus much is plainly indicated by his mention of " the still- 
vex'd Bermoothes," as the Bermudas were then called, and 
also by the qualities of air and soil ascribed to his happy 
island. So that 16 10 is as early a date as can well be as- 
signed for the composition. The supernatural in the play 
was no doubt the Poet's own creation ; but it would have 
been in accordance with his usual method to avail himself 
of whatever interest might spring from the popular notions 
touching the Bermudas. In his marvellous creations the 
people would see nothing but the distant marvels with which 
their fancies were prepossessed. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

Concurrent with all this is the internal evidence of the 
play itself. The style, language, and general cast of thought, 
the union of richness and severity, the grave, austere beauty 
of character which pervades it, and the organic compactness 
of the whole structure, all go to mark it as an issue of the 
Poet's ripest years. Coleridge regarded it as " certainly one 
of Shakespeare's latest works, judging from the language 
only." Campbell the poet considers it his very latest. "The 
Tempest," says he, " has a sort of sacredness as the last work 
of a mighty workman. Shakespeare, as if conscious that it 
would be his last, and as if inspired to typify himself, has 
made his hero a natural, a dignified, and benevolent magi- 
cian, who could conjure up ' spirits from the vasty deep,' 
and command supernatural agency by the most seemingly- 
natural and simple means. Shakespeare himself is Prospero, 
or rather the superior genius who commands both Prospero 
and Ariel. But the time was approaching when the potent 
sorcerer was to break his staff, and bury it fathoms in the 
ocean ' deeper than did ever plummet sound.' That staff 
has never been and will never be recovered." 

But I suspect there is more of poetry than of truth in this ; 
at least I can find no warrant for it : on the contrary, we 
have fair ground for believing that at least Coriolanus, King 
Henry the Eighth, and perhaps The Winter's Tale were writ- 
ten after The Tempest. Verplanck, rather than give up the 
notion so well put by Campbell, suggests that the Poet may 
have revised The Tempest after all his other plays were writ- 
ten, and inserted the passage where Prospero abjures his 
" rough magic," and buries his staff, and drowns his book. 
But I can hardly think that Shakespeare had any reference 
to himself in that passage : for, besides that he did not use 
to put his own feelings and purposes into the mouth of his 



8 THE TEMPEST. - 

characters, the doing so in this case would infer such a 
degree of self- exultation as, it seems to me, his native and 
habitual modesty would scarce permit. 

Source of the Plot, 

Shakespeare was so unconscious of his great inventive 
faculty, so unambitious of originality in his plots and mate- 
rials, and so apt to found his plays upon some popular chron- 
icle or tale or romance, that he is generally, perhaps justly, 
presumed to have done so in this instance. Yet no play or 
novel has been identified as having furnished, in any sort, 
the basis of The Tempest, or any materials towards the com- 
position. Commentators have been very diligent and in- 
quisitive in the search ; still, for aught appears thus far, the 
probability is, that, in this case, the plot had its origin in the 
Poet's mind. Collins the poet, indeed, told Thomas War- 
ton that he had met with a novel called Aurelio and Isabella, 
dated 1588, and printed in Italian, Spanish, French, and 
English, upon which he thought The Tempest to have been 
founded : but poor Collins was at the time suffering under 
his mental disorder ; and, as regards the particular novel he 
mentioned, his memory must have been at fault ; for the 
story of Aurelio and Isabella has nothing in common with 
the play. 

In the year 1841, however, Mr. Thorns called attention, in 
The New Monthly Magazine, to some remarkable coincidences 
between The Te?npest and a German dramatic piece entitled 
The Beautiful Sidea, composed by Jacob Ayrer, who was a 
notary of Nuremberg, and contemporary with Shakespeare. 
In this piece, Prince Ludolph and Prince Leudegast answer 
to Prospero and Alonso. Ludolph is a magician, has an only 
daughter, Sidea, and an attendant spirit, Runcifal, who has 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

some points of resemblance to Ariel. Soon after the opening 
of the piece, Ludolph, having been vanquished by his rival, 
and with his daughter driven into a forest, rebukes her for 
complaining of their change of fortune ; and then summons 
his spirit Runcifal, in order to learn from him their future 
destiny, and their prospects of revenge. Runcifal, who, like 
Ariel, is somewhat "moody," announces to Ludolph that the 
son of his enemy will shortly become his prisoner. After a 
comic episode, Prince Leudegast, with his son Engelbrecht 
and the counsellors, is seen hunting in the same forest, when 
Engelbrecht and his companion Famulus, having separated 
from their associates, are suddenly encountered by Ludolph 
and his daughter. He commands them to yield themselves 
prisoners ; they refuse, and attempt to draw their swords, 
when he renders them powerless by a touch of his magical 
wand, and gives Engelbrecht over to Sidea, to carry logs of 
wood for her, and to obey her in all things. Later in the 
piece, Sidea, moved with pity for the prince's labour in car- 
rying logs, declares that she would " feel great joy, if he 
would prove faithful to me, and take me in wedlock " ; an 
event which is at last happily brought to pass, and leads to a 
reconciliation of their parents. 

Here the resemblances are evidently much too close to 
have been accidental : either the German must have bor- 
rowed from Shakespeare, or Shakespeare from the German, 
or both of them from some common source. Tieck gave it 
as his opinion that the German was derived from an English 
original now lost, to which Shakespeare was also indebted 
for the incidents of The Tempest. There the matter has to 
rest for the present. — There is, besides, an old ballad called 
The Inchanted Island, which was once thought to have con- 
tributed something towards the play : but it is now generally 



IO THE TEMPEST. 

held to be more modern than the play, and probably founded 
upon it ; the names and some of the incidents being varied, 
as if on purpose to disguise its connection with a work that 
was popular on the stage. 

Locality of the Scene. 

There has been considerable discussion as to the scene of 
The Tempest. A wide range of critics from Mr Chalmers to 
Mrs. Jameson have taken for granted that the Poet fixed 
his scene in the Bermudas. For this they have alleged no 
authority but his mention of " the still-vex'd Bermoothes." 
Ariel's trip from " the deep nook to fetch dew from the still- 
vex'd Bermoothes " does indeed show that the Bermudas 
were in the Poet's mind ; but then it also shows that his 
scene was not there ; for it had been no feat at all worth 
mentioning for Ariel to fetch dew from one part of the Ber- 
mudas to another. An aerial voyage of some two or three 
thousand miles was the least that so nimble a messenger 
could be expected to make any account of. Besides, in less 
than an hour after the wrecking of the King's ship, the rest 
of the fleet are said to be upon the Mediterranean, " bound 
sadly home for Naples." On the other hand, the Rev. Mr. 
Hunter is very positive that, if we read the play with a map 
before us, we shall bring up at the island of Lampedusa, 
which "lies midway between Malta and the African coast." 
He makes out a pretty fair case, nevertheless I must be ex- 
cused ; not so much that I positively reject his theory as 
that I simply do not care whether it be true or not. But, if 
we must have any supposal about it, the most reasonable as 
well as the most poetical one seems to be, that the Poet, 
writing without a map, placed his scene upon an island of 
the mind ; and that it suited his purpose to transfer to his 



INTRODUCTION. II 

ideal whereabout some of the wonders of Transatlantic dis- 
covery. I should almost as soon think of going to history 
for the characters of Ariel and Caliban, as to geography for 
the size, locality, or whatsoever else, of their dwelling-place. 
And it is to be noted that the old ballad just referred to 
seems to take for granted that the island was but an island 
of the mind ; representing it to have disappeared upon Pros- 
pero's leaving it : — 

From that day forth the isle has been 
By wandering sailors never seen : 

Some say 'tis buried deep 
Beneath the sea, which breaks and roars 
Above its savage rocky shores, 

Nor e'er is known to sleep. 

General Characteristics. 

The Tempest is on all hands regarded as one of Shake- 
peare's perfectest works. Some of his plays, I should say, 
have beams in their eyes ; but this has hardly so much as a 
mote ; or, if it have any motes, my own eyes are not clear 
enough to discern them. I dare not pronounce the work 
faultless, for this is too much to affirm of any human work- 
manship ; but I venture to think that whatever faults it may 
have are such as criticism is hardly competent to specify. 
In the characters of Ariel, Miranda, and Caliban, we have 
three of the most unique and original conceptions that ever 
sprang from the wit of man. We can scarce imagine how 
the Ideal could be pushed further beyond Nature ; yet we 
here find it clothed with all the truth and life of Nature. 
And the whole texture of incident and circumstance is framed 
in keeping with that Ideal ; so that all the parts and particu- 
lars cohere together, mutually supporting and supported. 



12 THE TEMPEST. 

The leading sentiment naturally inspired by the scenes of 
this drama is, I believe, that of delighted wonder. And such, 
as appears from the heroine's name, Miranda, who is the 
potency of the drama, is probably the sentiment which the 
play was meant to inspire. But the grace and efficacy in 
which the workmanship is steeped are so etherial and so fine, 
that they can hardly be discoursed in any but the poetic 
form : it may well be doubted whether Criticism has any 
fingers delicate enough to grasp them. So much is this the 
case, that it seemed to me quite doubtful whether I should 
do well to undertake the theme at all. For Criticism is 
necessarily obliged to substitute, more or less, the forms of 
logic for those of art ; and art, it scarce need be said, can 
do many things that are altogether beyond the reach of logic. 
On the other hand, the charm and verdure of these scenes 
are so unwithering and inexhaustible, that I could not quite 
make up my mind to leave the subject untried. Nor do I 
know how I can better serve my countrymen than by en- 
gaging and helping them in the study of this great inherit- 
ance of natural wisdom and unreproved delight. For, as- 
suredly, if they early learn to be at home and to take pleasure 
in Shakespeare's workmanship, their whole after-life will be 
the better and the happier for it. 

Coleridge says '■'■The Tempest is a specimen of the purely 
romantic drama." The term romantic is here used in a 
technical sense ; that is, to distinguish the Shakespearian 
from the Classic Drama. In this sense, I cannot quite 
agree with the great critic that the drama is purely roman- 
tic. Highly romantic it certainly is, in its wide, free, bold 
variety of character and incident, and in all the qualities that 
enter into the picturesque ; yet not romantic in such sort, I 
think, but that it is at the same time equally classic ; classic, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

not only in that the unities of time and place are strictly ob- 
served, but as having the other qualities which naturally go 
with those laws of the classic form ; in its severe beauty and 
majestic simplicity, its interfusion of the lyrical and ethical, 
and in the mellow atmosphere of serenity and composure 
which envelopes it : as if on purpose to show the Poet's 
mastery not only of both the Classic and Romantic Drama, 
but of the common Nature out of which both of them grew. 
This union of both kinds in one without hindrance to the 
distinctive qualities of either, — this it is, I think, that chiefly 
distinguishes The Tempest from the Poet's other dramas. 
Some have thought that in this play Shakespeare specially 
undertook to silence the pedantic cavillers of his time by 
showing that he could keep to the rules of the Greek stage, 
if he chose to do so, without being any the less himself. 
But it seems more likely that he was here drawn into such 
a course by the leading of his own wise spirit than by the 
cavils of contemporary critics ; the form appearing too cog- 
nate with the matter to have been dictated by any thing 
external to the work itself. 

There are some points that naturally suggest a comparison 
between The Tempest and A Midsummer-Night' 's Dream. 
In both the Poet has with equal or nearly equal success car- 
ried Nature, as it were, beyond herself, and peopled a purely 
ideal region with the attributes of life and reality ; so that 
the characters touch us like substantive, personal beings, as 
if he had but described, not created them. But, beyond 
this, the resemblance ceases : indeed no two of his plays 
differ more widely in all other respects. 

The Tempest presents a combination of elements appar- 
ently so incongruous that we cannot but marvel how they 
were brought together ; yet they blend so sweetly, and co- 



14 THE TEMPEST. 

operate so smoothly, that we at once feel at home with them, 
and see nothing to hinder their union in the world of which 
we are a part. For in the mingling of the natural and the 
supernatural we here find no gap, no break ; nothing dis- 
jointed or abrupt ; the two being drawn into each other 
so harmoniously, and so knit together by mutual participa- 
tions, that they seem strictly continuous, with no distinguish- 
able line to mark where they meet and join. It is as if the 
gulf which apparently separates the two worlds had been 
abolished, leaving nothing to prevent a free circulation and 
intercourse between them. 

The Hero. 

Prospero, standing in the centre of the whole, acts as a 
kind of subordinate Providence, reconciling the diverse ele- 
ments to himself and in himself to one another. Though 
armed with supernatural might, so that the winds and waves 
obey him, his magical and mysterious powers are tied to 
truth and right : his " high charms work " to none but just 
and beneficent ends ; and whatever might be repulsive in 
the magician is softened and made attractive by the virtues 
of the man and the feelings of the father : Ariel links him 
with the world above us, Caliban with the world beneath us, 
and Miranda — "thee, my dear one, thee my daughter" — 
with the world around and within us. And the mind acqui- 
esces freely in the miracles ascribed to him ; his thoughts 
and aims being so at one with Nature's inward harmonies, 
that we cannot tell whether he shapes her movements or 
merely falls in with them ; that is, whether his art stands in 
submission or command. His sorcery indeed is the sorcery 
of knowledge, his magic the magic of virtue. For what so 
marvellous as the inward, vital necromancy of good which 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

transmutes the wrongs that are done him into motives of 
beneficence, and is so far from being hurt by the powers of 
Evil, that it turns their assaults into new sources of strength 
against them ? And with what a smooth tranquillity of spirit 
he everywhere speaks and acts ! as if the discipline of adver- 
sity had but served 

to elevate the will, 
And lead him on to that transcendent rest 
Where every passion doth the sway attest 
Of Reason seated on her sovereign hill. 

Shakespeare and Bacon, the Prince of poets and the Prince 
of philosophers, wrought out their mighty works side by side, 
and nearly at the same time, though without any express 
recognition of each other. And why may we not regard 
Prospero as prognosticating in a poetical form those vast 
triumphs of man's rational spirit which the philosopher fore- 
saw and prepared ? For it is observable that, before Pros- 
' pero's coming to the island, the powers which cleave to his 
thoughts and obey his "so potent art "were at perpetual 
war, the better being in subjection to the worse, and all being 
turned from their rightful ends into a mad, brawling disso- 
nance : but he teaches them to know their places ; and, 
"weak masters though they be," without such guidance, yet 
under his ordering they become powerful, and work together 
as if endowed with a rational soul and a social purpose ; their 
insane gabble turning to speech, their savage howling to 

music ; so that 

the isle is full of noises, 
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. 

Wherein is boldly figured the educating of Nature up, so to 
speak, into intelligent ministries, she lending man hands be- 
cause he lends her eyes, and weaving her forces into vital 
union with him. 



1 6 THE TEMPEST. 

You by whose aid — 
Weak masters though ye be — I have bedimm'd 
The noontide Sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, 
And 'twixt the green sea and the azure vault 
Set roaring war : to the dread-rattling thunder 
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak 
With his own bolt : the strong-based promontory 
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up 
The pine and cedar. 

In this bold imagery we seem to have a kind of prophecy 
of what human science and skill have since achieved in tam- 
ing the great forces of Nature to man's hand, and harnessing 
them into his service. Is not all this as if the infernal powers 
should be appeased and soothed by the melody and sweet- 
ness of the Orphean harp and voice ? And do we not see 
how the very elements themselves grow happy and merry in 
serving man, when he by his wisdom and eloquence has 
once charmed them into order and concert ? Man has but 
to learn Nature's language and obey her voice, and she 
clothes him with plenipotence. The mad warring of her 
forces turns to rational speech and music when he holds the 
torch of reason before them and makes it shine full in their 
faces. Let him but set himself steadfastly to understand and 
observe her laws, and her mighty energies hasten to wait 
upon him, as docile to his hand as the lion to the eye and 
voice of Lady Una. So that we may not unfairly apply to 
Prospero what Bacon so finely interprets of Orpheus, as " a 
wonderful and divine person skilled in all kinds of harmony, 
subduing and drawing all things after him by sweet and gen- 
tle methods and modulations." 

All this, to be sure, is making the work rather an allegory 
than a drama, and therein of course misrepresents its quality. 
For the connecting links in this strange intercourse of man 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

and Nature are " beings individually determined," and affect 
us as persons, not as propositions. 

Prospero's Prime Minister. 

Ariel and Caliban are equally preternatural, though in op- 
posite directions. Ariel's very being is spun out of melody 
and fragrance ; at least, if a feeling soul and an intelligent 
will are the warp, these are the woof of his exquisite texture. 
He has just enough of human-heartedness to know how he 
would feel were he human, and a proportionable sense of 
gratitude, which has been aptly called " the memory of the 
heart " : hence he needs to be often reminded of his obliga- 
tions, but is religiously true to them so long as he remembers 
them. His delicacy of nature is nowhere more apparent 
than in his sympathy with right and good : the instant he 
comes within their touch he follows them without reserve ; 
and he will suffer any torments rather than " act the earthy 
and abhorr'd commands " that go against his moral grain. 
And what a merry little personage he is withal ! as if his 
being were cast together in an impulse of play, and he would 
spend his whole life in one perpetual frolic. 

But the main ingredients of Ariel's zephyr-like constitution 
are shown in his leading inclinations ; as he naturally has 
most affinity for that of which he is framed. Moral ties are 
irksome to him ; they are not his proper element : when he 
enters their sphere, he feels them to be holy indeed ; but, 
were he free, he would keep out of their reach, and follow 
the circling seasons in their course, and always dwell merrily 
in the fringes of Summer. Prospero quietly intimates his 
instinctive dread of the cold by threatening to make him 
" howl away twelve Winters." And the chief joy of his 
promised release from service is, that he will then be free 



1 8 THE TEMPEST. 

to live all the year through under the soft rule of Summer, 
with its flowers and fragrancies and melodies. He is indeed 
an arrant little epicure of perfume and sweet sounds, and 
gives forth several songs which " seem to sound in the air, 
and as if the person playing them were invisible." 

A part of Ariel's unique texture is well shown in the scene 
where he relents at the sufferings of the shipwrecked lords, 
and remonstrates with his master in their behalf : — 

Ariel. The King, 

His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted ; 
And the remainder mourning over them, 
Brimful of sorrow and dismay ; but chiefly 
He that you term'd the good old lord, Gonzalo : 
His tears run down his beard, like winter-drops 
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em, 
That, if you now beheld them, your affections 
Would become tender. 

Pros. Dost thou think so, spirit ? 

Ariel. Mine would, sir, were I human. 

Another mark-worthy feature of Ariel is, that his power 
does not stop with the physical forces of Nature, but reaches 
also to the hearts and consciences of men ; so that by his 
music he can kindle or assuage the deepest griefs of the one, 
and strike the keenest pangs of remorse into the other. This 
comes out in the different effects of his art upon Ferdinand 
and the guilty King, as related by the men themselves : — 

Where should this music be ? i' the air or th' earth ? 
It sounds no more : and, sure, it waits upon 
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank, 
Weeping again the King my father's wreck, 
This music crept by me upon the waters, 
Allaying both their fury and my passion 
With its sweet air : thence I have follow'd it, 
Or it hath drawn me rather : but 'tis gone. 
No, it begins again. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

Such is the effect on Ferdinand : now mark the contrast 
when we come to the King : — 

O, it is monstrous, monstrous ! 
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it ; 
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, 
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced 
The name of Prosper : it did bass my trespass. 
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded ; and 
I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, 
And with him there lie mudded. 

In the planting of love, too, Ariel beats old god Cupid all 
to nothing. For it is through some witchcraft of his that 
Ferdinand and Miranda are surprised into a mutual rapture ; 
so that Prospero notes at once how " at the first sight they 
have changed eyes," and " are both in either's power." All 
which is indeed just what Prospero wanted ; yet he is him- 
self fairly startled at the result : that fine issue of nature out- 
runs his thought; and the wise old gentleman takes care 
forthwith lest it work too fast : — 

This swift business 
I must uneasy make, lest too light winning 
Make the prize light. 

I must note one more trait in Ariel. It is his fondness of 
mischievous sport, wherein he reminds us somewhat of Fairy 
Puck in A Midsummer-Nighf s Dream. It is shown in the 
evident gust with which he relates the trick he has played on 
Caliban and his confederates, when they were proceeding to 
execute their conspiracy against the hero's life : — 

As I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; 
So full of valour, that they smote the air 
For breathing in their faces ; beat the ground 
For kissing of their feet ; yet always bending 
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor ; 
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, 



20 THE TEMPEST. 

Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses 
As they smelt music : so I charm'd their ears, 
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through 
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, 
Which enter'd their frail shins : at last I left them 
I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell, 
There dancing up to th' chins. 

Of Ariel's powers and functions as Prospero's prime min- 
ister, no logical forms, nothing but the Poet's art, can give 
any sort of an idea. No painter, I am sure, can do any- 
thing with him ; still less can any sculptor. Gifted with the 
ubiquity and multiformity of the substance from which he 
is named, before we can catch and define him in any one 
shape, he has passed into another. All we can say of him 
on this score is, that through his agency Prospero's thoughts 
forthwith become things, his volitions events. And yet, 
strangely and diversely as Ariel's nature is elemented and 
composed, with touches akin to several orders of being, 
there is such a self-consistency about him, he is so cut out 
in individual distinctness, and so rounded-in with personal 
attributes, that contemplation freely and easily rests upon 
him as an object. In other words, he is by no means an 
abstract idea personified, or any sort of intellectual diagram, 
but a veritable person ; and we have a personal feeling to- 
wards the dear creature, and would fain knit him into the 
living circle of our human affections, making him a familiar 
playfellow of the heart, to be cherished with " praise, blame, 
love, kisses, tears, and smiles." 

Caliban. 

If Caliban strikes us as a more wonderful creation than 
Ariel, it is probably because he has more in common with 
us, without being in any proper sense human. Perhaps I 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

cannot hit him off better than by saying that he represents, 
both in body and soul, a sort of intermediate nature between 
man and brute, with .an infusion of something that belongs 
to neither ; as though one of the transformations imagined 
by the evolutionists had stuck midway in its course, where 
a breath or vapour of essential Evil had knit itself vitally into 
his texture. Caliban has all the attributes of humanity from 
the moral downwards, so that his nature touches and borders 
upon the sphere of moral life : still the result but approves 
his exclusion from such life, in that it brings him to recog- 
nize moral law only as making for self ; that is, he has in- 
telligence of seeming wrong in what is done to him, but no 
conscience of what is wrong in his own doings. It is a most 
singular and significant stroke in the delineation, that sleep 
seems to loosen the fetters of his soul, and lift him above 
himself: then indeed, and then only, "the muddy vesture 
of decay " doth not so " grossly close him in," but that some 
proper spirit-notices come upon him ; as if in his passive 
state the voice of truth and good vibrated down to his soul, 
and stopped there, being unable to kindle any answering 
tones within : so that in his waking hours they are to him 
but as the memory of a dream. 

Sometime a thousand twangling instruments 
Will hum about mine ears ; and sometime voices, 
That, if I then had waked after long sleep, 
Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, 
The clouds methought would open, and show riches 
Ready to drop upon me ; that, when I waked, 
I cried to dream again. 

Thus Caliban is part man, part demon, part brute, each 
being drawn somewhat out of itself by combination with the 
others, and the union of all preventing him from being 
either ; for which cause language has no generic term that 



2 2 THE TEMPEST. 

fits him. Yet this strange, uncouth, but life-like confusion of 
natures Prospero has educated into a sort of poet. This, 
however, has nowise tamed, it has rather increased, his in- 
nate malignity and crookedness of disposition ; education 
having of course but educed what was in him. Even his 
poetry is, for the most part, made up of the fascinations of 
ugliness ; a sort of inverted beauty ; the poetry of dissonance 
and deformity ; the proper music of his nature being to 
curse, its proper laughter to snarl. Schlegel finely compares 
his mind to a dark cave, into which the light of knowledge 
falling neither illuminates nor warms it, but only serves to 
put in motion the poisonous vapours generated there. 

Now it is by exhausting the resources of instruction on 
such a being that his innate and essential deficiency is best 
shown. For, had he the germs of a human soul, they must 
needs have been drawn forth by the process that has made 
him a poet. The magical presence of spirits has indeed cast 
into the caverns of his brain some faint reflection of a better 
world, but without calling up any answering emotions or as- 
pirations ; he having no susceptibilities to catch and take in 
the epiphanies that throng his whereabout. So that, para- 
doxical as it may seem, he exemplifies the two-fold triumph 
of art over nature, and of nature over art ; that is, art has tri- 
umphed in making him a poet, and nature, in still keeping 
him from being a man ; though he has enough of the human 
in him to evince in a high degree the swelling of intellectual 
pride. 

But what is most remarkable of all in Caliban is the perfect 
originality of his thoughts and manners. Though framed of 
grossness and malignity, there is nothing vulgar or common- 
place about him. His whole character indeed is developed 
from within, not impressed from without ; the effect of Pros- 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

pero's instructions having been to make him all the more 
himself; and there being perhaps no soil in his nature for 
conventional vices and knaveries to take root and grow in. 
Hence the almost classic dignity of his behaviour compared 
with that of the drunken sailors, who are little else than a 
sort of low, vulgar conventionalities organized, and as such 
not less true to the life than consistent with themselves. In 
his simplicity, indeed, he at first mistakes them for gods who 
" bear celestial liquor," and they wax merry enough at the 
" credulous monster " ; but, in his vigour of thought and 
purpose, he soon conceives such a scorn of their childish 
interest in whatever trinkets and gewgaws meet their eye, as 
fairly drives off his fit of intoxication ; and the savage of the 
woods, half-human though he be, seems nobility itself beside 
the savages of the city. 

In fine, if Caliban is, so to speak, the organized sediment 
and dregs of the place, from which all the finer spirit has 
been drawn off to fashion the delicate Ariel, yet having some 
parts of a human mind strangely interwoven with his struc- 
ture ; every thing about him, all that he does and says, is 
suitable and correspondent to such a constitution of nature. 
So that all the elements and attributes of his being stand and 
work together in living coherence, thus rendering him no 
less substantive and personal to our apprehension than he is 
original and peculiar in himself. 

The Heroine. 

Such are the objects and influences amidst which the 
clear, placid nature of Miranda has been developed. Of 
the world whence her father was driven, its crimes and fol- 
lies and sufferings, she knows nothing ; he having studiously 
kept all such notices from her, to the end, apparently, that 



24 THE TEMPEST. 

nothing might thwart or hinder the plastic efficacies that 
surrounded her. And here all the simple and original ele- 
ments of her being, love, light, grace, honour, innocence, 
all pure feelings and tender sympathies, whatever is sweet 
and gentle and holy in womanhood, seem to have sprung 
up in her nature as from celestial seed : " the contagion of 
the world's slow stain " has not visited her ; the chills and 
cankers of artificial wisdom have not touched nor come nigh 
her : if there were any fog or breath of evil in the place that 
might else dim or spot her soul, it has been sponged up by 
Caliban, as being more congenial with his nature ; while he 
is simply " a villain she does not love to look on." Nor is 
this all. 

The aerial music beneath which her nature has expanded 
with answering sweetness seems to rest visibly upon her, 
linking her as it were with some superior order of beings : 
the spirit and genius of the place, its magic and mystery, 
have breathed their power into her face ; and out of them 
she has unconsciously woven herself a robe of supernatural 
grace, in which even her mortal nature seems half hidden, 
so that we are in doubt whether she belongs more to Heaven 
or to Earth. Thus both her native virtues and the efficacies 
of the place seem to have crept and stolen into her unper- 
ceived, by mutual attraction and assimilation twining together 
in one growth, and each diffusing its life and beauty over 
and through the others. It would seem indeed as if Words- 
worth must have had Miranda in his eye, (or was he but 
working in the spirit of that Nature which she so rarely 
exemplifies ?) when he wrote the following : — 

The floating clouds their state shall lend 
To her; for her the willow bend; 
Nor shall she fail to see 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

Even in the motions of the storm 
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 
By silent sympathy. 

- The stars of midnight shall be dear 

To her ; and she shall lean her ear 

In many a secret place 
Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
And beauty born of murmuring sound 

Shall pass into her face. 

Yet, for all this, Miranda not a whit the less touches us as 
a creature of flesh and blood, — 

A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveller between life and death. 

Nay, rather she seems all the more so, inasmuch as the 
character thus coheres with the circumstances, the virtues 
and poetries of the place being expressed in her visibly ; 
and she would be far less real to our feelings/were not the 
wonders of her whereabout thus vitally incorporated with 
her innate and original attributes. 

It is observable that Miranda does not perceive the work- 
ing of her father's art upon herself. For, when he casts a 
spell of drowsiness over her, so that she cannot choose but 
sleep, on being awaked by him she tells him, " The strange- 
ness of your story put heaviness in me." So his art conceals 
itself in its very potency of operation ; and seems the more 
like nature for being preternatural. It is another noteworthy 
point, that while he is telling his strange tale he thinks she 
is not listening attentively to his speech, partly because he 
is not attending to it himself, his thoughts being busy with 
the approaching crisis of his fortune, and drawn away to the 
other matters which he has in hand, and partly because in 
her trance of wonder at what he is relating she seems ab- 
stracted and self-withdrawn from the matter of his discourse. 



26 THE TEMPEST. 

His own absent-mindedness on this occasion is aptly and 
artfully indicated by his broken and disjointed manner of 
speech. That his tongue and thought are not beating time 
together appears in that the latter end of his sentences keeps 
forgetting the beginning. 

These are among the fine strokes and delicate touches 
whereby the Poet makes, or rather permits, the character of 
his persons to transpire so quietly as not to excite special 
notice at the time. That Miranda should be so rapt at her 
father's tale as to seem absent and wandering, is a charming 
instance in point. For indeed to her the supernatural stands 
in the place of Nature ; and nothing is so strange and won- 
derful as what actually passes in the life and heart of man : 
miracles have been her daily food, her father being the great- 
est miracle of all ; which must needs make the common 
events and passions and perturbations of the world seem to 
her miraculous. All which is wrought out by the Poet with 
so much art and so little appearance of art, that Franz Horn 
is the only critic, so far as I know, that seems to have thought 
of it. 

I must not dismiss Miranda without remarking the sweet 
union of womanly dignity and childlike simplicity in her char- 
acter, she not knowing or not caring to disguise the innocent 
movements of her heart. This, too, is a natural result of 
her situation. The instance to which I refer is when Fer- 
dinand, his manhood all alive with her, lets her hear his soul 
speak ; and she, weeping at what she is glad of, replies, — 

Hence, bashful cunning ! 
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! — 
I am your wife, if you will marry me : 
If not, I'll die your maid : to be your fellow 
You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant, 
Whether you will or no. 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

Equally fine is the circumstance that her father opens to her 
the story of his life, and lets her. into the secret of her noble 
birth and ancestry, at a time when she is suffering with those 
that she saw suffer, and when her eyes are jewelled with 
" drops that sacred pity hath engender'd " ; as if on purpose 
that the ideas of rank and dignity may sweetly blend and co- 
alesce in her mind with the sympathies of the woman. 

The Prince. 

In Ferdinand is portrayed one of those happy natures, 
such as we sometimes meet with, who are built up all the 
more strongly in truth and good by contact with the vices 
and meannesses of the world. Courage, piety, and honour 
are his leading characteristics ; and these virtues are so much 
at home in his breast, and have such an easy, natural ascen- 
dant in his conduct, that he thinks not of them, and cares 
only to prevent or remove the stains which affront his inward 
eye. The meeting of him and Miranda is replete with magic 
indeed, — a magic higher and more potent even than Pros- 
pero's ; the riches that nestle in their bosoms at once leaping 
forth and running together in a stream of poetry which no 
words of mine can describe. So much of beauty in so few 
words, and those few so plain and simple, — " O, wondrous 
skill and sweet wit of the man ! " 

Shakespeare's genius is specially venerable in that he makes 
piety and honour go hand in hand with love. It seems to 
have been a fixed principle with him, if indeed it was not 
rather a genial instinct, that where the heart is rightly en- 
gaged, there the highest and tenderest thoughts of religion do 
naturally cluster and converge. For indeed the love that 
looks to marriage is itself a religion : its first impulse is to in- 
vest its object with poetry and consecration : to be " true to 



/ 



28 THE TEMPEST. 

the kindred points of Heaven and home/' is both its inspira- 
tion and its law. It thus involves a sort of regeneration of the 
inner man, and carries in its hand the baptismal fire of a 
nobler and diviner life. 

And so it is in this delectable instance. In Ferdinand, as 
in all generous natures, "love betters what is best." Its first 
springing in his breast stirs his heavenward thoughts and as- 
pirations into exercise : the moment that kindles his heart 
towards Miranda also kindles his soul in piety to God ; and 
he knows not how to commune in prayer with the Source of 
good, unless he may couple her welfare with his own, and 
breathe her name in his holiest service. Thus his love and 
piety are kindred and coefficient forces, as indeed all true 
love and piety essentially are. However thoughtless we may 
be of the Divine help and guardianship for ourselves, we can 
hardly choose but crave them for those to whom our souls 
are knit in the sacred dearness of household ties. And so 
with this noble pair, the same power that binds them to each 
other in the sacraments of love also binds them both in de- 
vout allegiance to the Author of their being ; whose pres- 
ence is most felt by them in the sacredness of their mutual 
truth. 

So much for the illustration here so sweetly given of the 
old principle, that whatsoever lies nearest a Christian's heart, 
whatsoever he tenders most dearly on Earth, whatsoever 
draws in most intimately with the currents of his soul, that 
is the spontaneous subject-matter of his prayers ; our purest 
loves thus sending us to God, as if from an instinctive feel- 
ing that, unless God be sanctified in our hearts, our hearts 
cannot retain their proper life. 

In regard to what springs up between Ferdinand and Mi- 
randa, it is to be noted that Prospero does little but furnish 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

occasions. He indeed thanks the quaint and delicate Ariel 
for the kindling touch that so quickly puts them " both in 
either 's power " ; for it seems to him the result of a finer 
inspiration than his art can reach ; and so he naturally at- 
tributes it to the magic of his airy minister ; whereas in truth 
it springs from a source far deeper than the magic of either, 
— a pre-established harmony which the mutual recognition 
now first quickens into audible music. After seeing himself 
thus outdone by the Nature he has been wont to control, 
and having witnessed such a " fair encounter of two most 
rare affections," no wonder that Prospero longs to be a man 
again, like other men, and gladly returns to 

The homely sympathy that heeds 
The common life, our nature breeds ; 
A wisdom fitted to the needs 
Of hearts at leisure. 

Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo. 

The strength and delicacy of imagination displayed in the 
characters already noticed are hardly more admirable than 
the truth and subtilty of observation shown in others. 

In the delineation of Antonio and Sebastian, short as it is, 
we have a volume of wise science, which Coleridge remarks 
upon thus : " In the first scene of the second Act, Shake- 
speare has shown the tendency in bad men to indulge in 
scorn and contemptuous expressions, as a mode of getting 
rid of their own uneasy feelings of inferiority to the good, 
and also of rendering the transition of others to wicknedness 
easy, by making the good ridiculous. Shakespeare never 
puts habitual scorn into the mouths of other than bad men, 
as here in the instance of Antonio and Sebastian." 

Nor is there less of judgment in the means used by Prospero 



30 THE TEMPEST. 

for bringing them to a better mind ; provoking in them the 
purpose of crime, and then taking away the performance ; 
that so he may lead them to a knowledge of themselves, 
and awe or shame down their evil by his demonstrations 
of good. For such is the proper effect of bad designs thus 
thwarted, showing the authors at once the wickedness of 
their hearts and the weakness of their hands ; whereas, if 
successful in their schemes, pride of power would forestall 
and prevent the natural shame and remorse of guilt. And 
we little know what evil it lieth and lurketh in our hearts to 
will or to do, till occasion invites or permits ; and Prospero's 
art here stands in presenting the occasion till the wicked 
purpose is formed, and then removing it as soon as the hand 
is raised. In the case of Antonio and Sebastian, the work- 
ings of magic are so mixed up with those of Nature, that we 
cannot distinguish them ; or rather Prospero here causes 
the supernatural to pursue the methods of Nature. 

And the same deep skill is shown in the case of the good 
old Lord Gonzalo, whose sense of his own infelicities seems 
lost in his care to minister comfort and diversion to others. 
Thus his virtue spontaneously opens the springs of wit and 
humour in him amid the terrors of the storm and shipwreck ; 
and he is merry while others are suffering, and merry even 
from sympathy with them ; and afterwards his thoughtful 
spirit plays with Utopian fancies ; and if " the latter end of 
his Commonwealth forgets the beginning," it is all the same 
to him, his purpose being only to beguile the anguish of 
supposed bereavement. It has been well said that " Gon- 
zalo is so occupied with duty, in which alone he finds pleas- 
ure, that he scarce notices the gnat-stings of wit with which 
his opponents pursue him ; or, if he observes, firmly and 
easily repels them." 



INTRODUCTION. 31 



The Comic Matter. 



The comic portions and characters of this play are in 
Shakespeare's raciest vein ; yet they are perfectly unique 
and singular withal, being quite unlike any other of his 
preparations in that kind, as much so as if they were the 
growth of a different planet. 

The presence of Trinculo and Stephano in the play has 
sometimes been regarded as a blemish. I cannot think it 
so. Their part is not only good in itself as comedy, but is 
in admirable keeping with the rest. Their follies give a zest 
and relish to the high poetries amidst which they grow. 
Such things go to make up the mysterious whole of human 
life j and they often help on our pleasure while seeming to 
hinder it : we may think they were better left out, but, were 
they left out, we should somehow feel the want of them. 
Besides, this part of the work, if it does not directly yield a 
grateful fragrance, is vitally connected with the parts that 
do. For there is perhaps no one of the Poet's dramas of 
which it can be more justly affirmed that all the parts draw 
together in organic unity, so that every thing helps every 
other thing. 

Concluding Remarks. 

Such are the strangely-assorted characters that make up 
this charming play. This harmonious working together of 
diverse and opposite elements, — this smooth concurrence 
of heterogeneous materials in one varied yet coherent im- 
pression, — by what subtile process this is brought about, is 
perhaps too deep a problem for Criticism to solve. 

I cannot leave the theme without remarking what an at- 
mosphere of wonder and mystery overhangs and pervades 



32 THE TEMPEST. 

this singular structure ; and how the whole seems steeped in 
glories invisible to the natural eye, yet made visible by the 
Poet's art : so that the effect is to lead the thoughts insen- 
sibly upwards to other worlds and other forms of being. It 
were difficult to name any thing else of human workmanship 
so thoroughly transfigured with 

the gleam, 
The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream. 

The celestial and the earthly are here so commingled, — ■ 
commingled, but not confounded, — that we see not where 
the one begins or the other ends : so that in the reading we 
seem transported to a region where we are strangers, yet old 
acquaintances ; where all things are at once new and famil- 
iar; the unearthly visions of the spot hardly touching us 
with surprise, because, though wonderful indeed, there is 
nothing about them but what readily finds or creates some 
answering powers and sympathies within us. In other words, 
they do not surprise us, because they at once kindle us into 
fellowship with them. That our thoughts and feelings are 
thus at home with such things, and take pleasure in them, — 
is not this because of some innate aptitudes and affinities of 
our nature for a supernatural and celestial life ? 

Point not these mysteries to an art 
Lodged above the starry pole ? 

Professor Dowden's Comments. 

The wrong-doers of The Tempest are a group of persons 
of various degrees of criminality, from Prospero's perfidious 
brother, still active in plotting evil, to Alonso, whose obliga- 
tions to the Duke of Milan had been of a public or princely 
kind. Spiritual powers are in alliance with Prospero ; and 



INTRODUCTION. $$ 

these, by terror and the awakening of remorse, prepare Alonso 
for receiving the balm of Prospero's forgiveness. He looks 
upon his son as lost, and recognizes in his son's loss the pun- 
ishment of his own guilt. " The powers delaying, not for- 
getting," have incensed the sea and shores against the sinful 
men ; nothing can deliver them except " heart-sorrow, and 
a clear life ensuing." Goethe, in the opening of the Second 
Part of Faust, has represented the ministry of external nature 
fulfilling functions with reference to the human conscience 
precisely the reverse of those ascribed to it in The Tempest. 
Faust, escaped from the prison-scene and the madness of 
Margarete, is lying on a flowery grass-plot, weary, restless, 
striving to sleep. The Ariel of Goethe calls upon his attend- 
ant elvish spirits to prepare the soul of Faust for renewed 
energy by bathing him in the dew of Lethe's stream, by 
assuaging his pain, by driving back remorse. To dismiss 
from his conscience the sense of the wrong he has done to 
a dead woman, is the initial step in the further education 
and development of Faust. Shakespeare's Ariel, breathing 
through the elements and the powers of Nature, quickens 
the remorse of the King for a crime of twelve years since. 

The enemies of Prospero are now completely in his power. 
How shall he deal with them ? They had perfidiously taken 
advantage of his unworldly and unpractical habits of life ; 
they had thrust him away from his dukedom ; they had 
exposed him with his three-years'-old daughter in a rotten 
boat to the mercy of the waves. Shall he not now avenge 
himself without remorse? What is Prospero's decision? 

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick, 

Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury 

Do I take part : the rarer action is 

In virtue than in vengeance : they being penitent, 

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 

Not a frown further. 



34 THE TEMPEST. 

We have seen how Timon turned fiercely upon mankind, 
and hated the wicked race : " I am Misanthropos, and hate 
mankind." The wrongs inflicted upon Prospero were cru- 
eller and more base than those from which Timon suffered. 
But Prospero had not lived in a summer mood of lax and 
prodigal benevolence : he had lived severely, " all dedicated 
to closeness and the bettering of my mind." And out of the 
strong comes forth sweetness. In the play of Cymbeline, the 
wrong which Posthumus has suffered from the Italian Iachimo 
is only less than that which Othello endures at the hands of 
Iago. But Iachimo, unlike Iago, is unable to sustain the 
burden of his guilt, and sinks under it. In the closing scene 
of Cymbeline, that in which Posthumus is himself welcomed 
home to the heart of Imogen, Posthumus in his turn becomes 
the pardoner : — 

Kneel not to me : 

The power that I have on you is to spare you ; 

The malice toward you to forgive you : live, 

And deal with others better. 

Hermione, Imogen, Prospero, — these are, as it were, 
names for the gracious powers which extend forgiveness to 
men. From the first, Hermione, whose clear-sightedness is 
equal to her courage, had perceived that her husband laboured 
under a delusion which was cruel and calamitous to himself. 
From the first, she transcends all blind resentment, and has 
true pity for the man who wrongs her. But, if she has forti- 
tude for her own uses, she is also able to accept for her hus- 
band the inevitable pain which is needful to restore him to 
his better mind. She will not shorten the term of his suffer- 
ing, because that suffering is beneficent. And at the last 
her silent embrace carries with it — and justly — a portion 
of that truth she had uttered long before : — 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

How will this grieve you, 
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that 
You thus have publish'd me ! Gentle my lord, 
You scarce can right me throughly then, to say 
You did mistake. 

The calm and complete comprehension of the fact is a pos- 
session painful yet precious to Hermione ; and it lifts her 
above all vulgar confusion of heart or temper, and above all 
unjust resentment. 

Imogen, who is the reverse of grave and massive in char- 
acter, but who has an exquisite vivacity of feeling and fancy, 
and a heart pure, quick, and ardent, passes from the swoon 
of her sudden anguish to a mood of bright and keen resent- 
ment, which is free from every trace of vindictive passion, 
and is indeed only pain disguised. And in like manner she 
forgives, not with self-possession and a broad, tranquil joy in 
the accomplished fact, but through a pure ardour, an exquis- 
ite eagerness of love and delight. Prospero's forgiveness is 
solemn, judicial, and has in it something abstract and imper- 
sonal. He cannot wrong his own higher nature, he cannot 
wrong his nobler reason, by cherishing so unworthy a passion 
as the desire of vengeance. Sebastian and Antonio, from whose 
conscience no remorse has been elicited, are met by no com- 
fortable pardon. They have received their lesson of failure 
and pain, and may possibly be convinced of the good sense 
and prudence of honourable dealing, even if they cannot per- 
ceive its moral obligation. Alonso, who is repentant, is sol- 
emnly pardoned. The forgiveness of Prospero is an embod- 
iment of impartial wisdom and loving justice. 

When a man has attained some high and luminous table- 
land of joy or of renouncement; when he has really trans- 
cended self; or when some one of the everlasting virtuous 
powers of the world, — duty, or sacrifice, or the strength of 



36 THE TEMPEST. 

any thing higher than oneself, — has assumed authority over 
him ; forthwith a strange, pathetic, ideal light is shed over 
all beautiful things in the lower world which has been aban- 
doned. We see the sunlight on our neighbour's field, while 
we are preoccupied about the grain that is growing in our 
own. And when we have ceased to hug our souls to any 
material possession, we see the sunlight wherever it falls. In 
the last chapter of George Eliot's great novel, Romola, who 
has ascended into her clear and calm solitude of self-trans- 
cending duty, bends tenderly over the children of Tito, utter- 
ing, in words made simple for their needs, the lore she has 
learnt from life, and seeing on their faces the light of strange, 
ideal beauty. In the latest plays of Shakespeare, the sympa- 
thetic reader can discern unmistakably a certain abandon- 
ment of the common joy of the world, a certain remoteness 
from the usual pleasures and sadnesses of life, and at the 
same time, all the more, this tender bending over those who 
are like children, still absorbed in their individual joys and 
sorrows. 

Over the beauty of youth and the love of youth there is 
shed, in these plays of Shakespeare's final period, a clear yet 
tender luminousness, not elsewhere to be perceived in his 
writings. In his earlier plays, Shakespeare writes concerning 
young men and maidens, their loves, their mirth, their griefs, 
as one who is among them, who has a lively personal interest 
in their concerns, who can make merry with them, treat them 
familiarly, and, if need be, can mock them into good sense. 
There is nothing in these early plays wonderful, strangely 
beautiful, pathetic about youth and its joys and sorrows. In 
the histories and tragedies, as was to be expected, more rnas- 
. sive, broader, or more profound objects of interest engaged 
the Poet's attention. But, in these latest plays, the beauti- 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

fill pathetic light is always present. There are the sufferers, 
aged, experienced, tried, — Queen Catharine, Prospero, Her- 
mione. And over against these there are the children ab- 
sorbed in their happy and exquisite egoism, — Perdita and 
Miranda, Florizel and Ferdinand, and the boys of old Bela- 
rius. 

The same means to secure ideality for these figures, so 
young and beautiful, is in each case (instinctively, perhaps, 
rather than deliberately) resorted to. They are lost chil- 
dren, — princes or princesses, removed from the Court, and 
its conventional surroundings, into some scene of rare natural 
beauty. There are the lost princes, Arviragus and Guiderius, 
among the mountains of Wales, drinking the free air, and of- 
fering their salutations to the risen Sun. There is Perdita, 
the shepherdess-princess, " queen of curds and cream," 
sharing with old and young her flowers, lovelier and more 
undying than those that Proserpina let fall from Dis's wag- 
on. There is Miranda, (whose very name is significant of 
wonder,) made up of beauty, and love, and womanly pity, 
neither courtly nor rustic, with the breeding of an island of 
enchantment, where Prospero is her tutor and protector, and 
Caliban her servant, and the Prince of Naples her lover. 
In each of these plays we can see Shakespeare, as it were, 
tenderly bending over the joys and sorrows of youth. We 
recognize this rather through the total characterization, and 
through a feeling and a presence, than through definite 
incident or statement. But some of this feeling escapes in 
the disinterested joy and admiration of old Belarius when he 
gazes at the princely youths, and in Camillo's loyalty to Flo- 
rizel and Perdita ; while it obtains more distinct expression 
in such a word as that which Prospero utters, when from a 
distance he watches with pleasure Miranda's zeal to relieve 



$8 THE TEMPEST. 

Ferdinand from his task of log-bearing : " Poor worm, thou 
art infected." 

It is not chiefly because Prospero is a great enchanter, 
now about to break his magic staff, to drown his book deeper 
than ever plummet sounded, to dismiss his airy spirits, and 
to return to the practical service of his Dukedom, that we 
identify him in some measure with Shakespeare himself. It 
is rather because the temper of Prospero, the grave harmony 
of his character, his self-mastery, his calm validity of will, his 
sensitiveness to wrong, his unfaltering justice, and, with these, 
a certain abandonment, a remoteness from the common joys 
and sorrows of the world, are characteristic of Shakespeare 
as discovered to us in all his latest plays. Prospero is a 
harmonious and fully-developed will. In the earlier play of 
fairy enchantments, A Midsummer - Nigh fs Dream, the 
" human mortals " wander to and fro in a maze of error, 
misled by the mischievous frolic of Puck, the jester and 
clown of Fairyland. But here the spirits of the elements, 
and Caliban the gross genius of brute-matter, — needful for 
the service of life, — are brought under subjection to the 
human will of Prospero. 

What is more, Prospero has entered into complete posses- 
sion of himself. Shakespeare has shown us his quick sense 
of injury, his intellectual impatience, his occasional moment 
of keen irritability, in order that we may be more deeply 
aware of his abiding strength and self-possession, and that 
we may perceive how these have been grafted upon a tem- 
perament not impassive or unexcitable. And Prospero has 
reached not only the higher levels of moral attainment ; he 
has also reached an altitude of thought from which he can 
survey the whole of human life, and see how small and yet 
how great it is. His heart is sensitive, he is profoundly 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

touched by the joy of children, with whom in the egoism of 
their love he passes for a thing of secondary interest ; he is 
deeply moved by the perfidy of his brother. His brain is 
readily set a-work, and can with difficulty be checked from 
eager and excessive energizing ; he is subject to the access 
of sudden and agitating thought. But Prospero masters his 
own sensitiveness, emotional and intellectual : — ■ 

We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd ; 
Bear with my weakness ; my old brain is troubled : 
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity : 
If you be pleased, retire into my cell, 
And there repose : a turn or two I'll walk, 
To still my beating mind. 

"Such stuff as dreams are made on." Nevertheless, in 
this little life, in this dream, Prospero will maintain his dream- 
rights and fulfil his dream-duties. In the dream, he, a Duke, 
will accomplish Duke's work. Having idealized every thing, 
Shakespeare left every thing real. Bishop Berkeley's foot 
was no less able to set a pebble flying than was the lumber- 
ing foot of Dr. Johnson. Nevertheless, no material substance 
intervened between the soul of Berkeley and the immediate 
presence of the play of Divine power. 

A thought which seems to run through the whole of The 
Tempest, appearing here and there like a coloured thread in 
some web, is the thought that the true freedom of man con- 
sists in service. Ariel, untouched by human feeling, is pant- 
ing for his liberty : in the last words of Prospero are prom- 
ised his enfranchisement and dismissal to the elements. Ariel 
reverences his great master, and serves him with bright 
alacrity ; but he is bound by none of our human ties, strong 
and tender ; and he will rejoice when Prospero is to him as 



40 THE TEMPEST. 

though he never were. To Caliban, a land-fish, with the 
duller elements of earth and water in his composition, but 
no portion of the higher elements, air and fire, though he 
receives dim intimations of a higher world, — a musical hum- 
ming, or a twangling, or a voice heard in sleep ; — to Cali- 
ban, service is slavery. He hates to bear his logs ; he fears 
the incomprehensible power of Prospero, and obeys, and 
curses. The great master has usurped the rights of the 
brute-power Caliban. And when Stephano and Trinculo 
appear, ridiculously impoverished specimens of humanity, 
with their shallow understandings and vulgar greeds, this 
poor earth-monster is possessed by a sudden fanaticism for 

liberty ! — 

'Ban, 'Ban, Ca — Caliban 
Has a new master : get a new man. 
Freedom, hey-day ! hey-day, freedom ! freedom, hey-day, freedom ! 

His new master also sings his impassioned hymn of lib- 
erty, the Marseillaise of the enchanted island : — 

Flout 'em and scout 'em, and scout 'em and flout 'em ; 
Thought is free. 

The leaders of the revolution, escaped from the stench 
and foulness of the horse-pond, King Stephano and his 
prime minister Trinculo, like too many leaders of the people, 
bring to an end their great achievement on behalf of liberty 
by quarrelling over booty, — the trumpery which the provi- 
dence of Prospero had placed in their way. Caliban, though 
scarce more truly wise or instructed than before, at least dis- 
covers his particular error of the day and hour : — 

What a thrice-double ass 
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, 
And worship this dull fool ! 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

It must be admitted that Shakespeare, if not, as Hartley 
Coleridge asserted, " a Tory and a gentleman," had within 
him some of the elements of English conservatism. 

But, while Ariel and Caliban, each in his own way, are im- 
patient of service, the human actors, in whom we are chiefly 
interested, are entering into bonds, — bonds of affection, 
bonds of duty, in which they find their truest freedom. 
Ferdinand and Miranda emulously contend in the task of 
bearing the burden which Prospero has imposed upon the 
Prince : — 

I am, in my condition, 
A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king, — 
I would, not so ! — and would no more endure 
This wooden slavery than to suffer 
The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak: 
The very instant that I saw you, did 
My heart fly to your service ; there resides, 
To make me slave to it ; and for your sake 
Am I this patient log-man. 

And Miranda speaks with the sacred candour from which 
spring the nobler manners of a world more real and glad than 
the world of convention and proprieties and pruderies : — ■ 

Hence, bashful cunning ! 
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! 
I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 
If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow 
You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant, 
Whether you will or no. 

Ferd. My mistress, dearest, 

And I thus humble ever. 

Mira. My husband, then ? 

Ferd, Ay, with a heart as willing 
As bondage e'er of freedom. 

In an earlier part of the play, this chord which runs 
through it had been playfully struck in the description of 



42 THE TEMPEST. 

Gonzalo's imaginary commonwealth, in which man is to be 
enfranchised from all the laboriqus necessities of life. Here 
is the ideal notional liberty, Shakespeare would say ; and to 
attempt to realize it at once lands us in absurdities and self- 
contradictions : — 

For no kind of traffic 
Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; 
Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, 
And use of service, none ; contract, succession, 
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; 
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 
No occupation ; all men idle, all, 
And women too, but innocent and pure ; 
No sovereignty : — 

Sebas. Yet he would be king on't. 

Anto. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. 



THE TEMPEST. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



ALONSO, King of Naples. 

Sebastian, his Brother. 

PROSPERO, the rightful Duke of Mi- 
lan. 

Antonio, his Brother, the usurping 
Duke of Milan. 

Ferdinand, Son to the King of Na- 
ples. 

Gonzalo, an honest old Counsellor 
of Naples, 

Adrian 

Francisco, 

Caliban, a savage and deformed 
Slave. 



T ' I Lords. 
SCO. i 



Trinculo, a Jester. 
Stephano, a drunken Butler. 
Master of a Ship, Boatswain, and 
Mariners. 

Miranda, Daughter to Prospero. 

Ariel, an airy Spirit. 

Other Spirits attending on Prospero. 

Iris, 

Ceres, 

Juno, \ presented by Spirits. 

Nymphs, 

Reapers, 



Scene, a Ship at Sea ; afterwards an uninhabited Island. 



ACTI. 

Scene I. — On a Ship at sea. A Storm, ivith Thunder and 

Lightning. 

Enter Master and Boatswain severally. 

Mast. Boatswain ! 

Boats. Here, master : what cheer ? 

43 



44 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Mast. Good, 1 speak to the mariners : fall to't yarely, 2 or 
we run ourselves a-ground : bestir, bestir. \_Exit. 

Enter Mariners. 

Boats. Heigh, my hearts ! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts ! 
yare, yare ! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whis- 
tle. \_Exeunt Mariners.] — Blow till thou burst thy wind, 3 if 
room enough ! 4 

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, 

and Others. 

Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master? 
Play the men. 5 

Boats. I pray now, keep below. 

Anto. Where is the master, boatswain ? 

Boats. Do you not hear him ? You mar our labour : 
keep your cabins ; you do assist the storm. 

1 Here, as in many other places, good is used just as we now use well. 
So a little after : " Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard." Also in 
Hamlet, i. i : "Good now, sit down, and tell me," &c. In the text, however, 
it carries something of an evasive force ; as, " Let that go " ; or, " No matter 
for that." 

2 Yarely is nimbly, briskly, or alertly. So, in the next speech, yare, an 
imperative verb, is, be nimble, or be on the alert. The word is seldom if ever 
used now in any form, but was much used in the Poet's time. In North's 
Plutarch we have such phrases as "galleys not yare of steerage," and "ships 
light ofyarage," and " galleys heavy ofyarage." 

3 In Shakespeare's time, the wind was often represented pictorially by 
the figure of a man with his cheeks puffed out to their utmost tension with 
the act of blowing. Probably the Poet had such a figure in his mind. So 
in King Lear, iii. 2 : " Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks /" Also in Peri- 
cles, iii. i : " Blow, and split thyself." 

4 That is, " if we have sea-room enough." So in Pericles, iii. I : " But 
sea-roo77i, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the Moon, I care not." 

5 Act with spirit, behave like men. So in 2 Samuel, x. 12 : " Be of good 
courage, and let us play the men for our people." 



scene I. THE TEMPEST. 45 

Gonza. Nay, good, be patient. 

Boats. When the sea is. Hence ! What care these 
roarers for the name of king ? To cabin : silence ! trouble 
us not. 

Gonza. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. 

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a 
counsellor : if you can command these elements to silence, 
and work the peace of the present, 6 we will not hand a rope 
more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you 
have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin 
for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. — Cheerly, good 
hearts ! — Out of our way, I say. \_Exit. 

Gonza. I have great comfort from this fellow : methinks 
he hath no drowning-mark upon him; his complexion 7 is 
perfect gallows. — Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging ! 
make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth 
little advantage ! If he be not born to be hang'd, our case 
is miserable. \_Exeunt. 

Re-enter Boatswain. 

Boats. Down with the top-mast! 8 yare ; lower, lower! 
Bring her to try wi' th' main-course. 9 \A cry within.~] A 

6 Present for pre 'sent time. So in the Prayer-Book : "That those things 
may please Him which we do at this present'' And in 1 Corinthians, xv. 6 :' 
" Of whom the greater part remain unto this present'' 

7 Complexion was often used for nature, native befit or aptitude. See The 
Merchant of Venice, page 134, note 7. 

8 Of this order Lord Mulgrave, a sailor critic, says, " The striking the 
top-mast was a new invention in Shakespeare's time, which he here very 
properly introduces. He has placed his ship in the situation in which it was 
indisputably right to strike the top-mast, — where he had not sea-room." 

9 This appears to have been a common nautical phrase. So in Hack- 
luyt's Voyages, 1598 : " And when the bark had way we cut the hauser, and 
so gat the sea to our friend, and tried out all the day with our maine course." 
Also in Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627 ; " Let us lie at trie with our maine 



46 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

plague upon this howling ! they are louder than the weather 
or our office. 10 — 

Re-enter Sebastian, Antonio, and Gonzalo. 

Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er, and 
drown ? Have you a mind to sink ? 

Sebas. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, 
in charitable dog ! 

Boats. Work you, then. 

Anto. Hang, cur, hang ! you whoreson, insolent noise- 
maker, we are less afraid to be drown'd 11 than thou art. 

Gonza. I'll warrant him for drowning, 12 though the ship 
were no stronger than a nut-shell. 

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold ! set her two courses ! 13 off 
to sea again ; lay her off ! 

course'' And Sir Walter Raleigh speaks of being " obliged to lye at trye 
with our main course and mizen." To lie at try is to keep as close to the 
wind as possible. 

10 Weather for storm. " Their howling drowns both the roaring of the 
tempest and the commands of the officer," or " our official orders." 

11 " Less afraid of being drown'd." So the Poet often uses the infinitive 
gerundively, or like the Latin gerund. See King Lear, page 117, note 18; 
also page 205, note 28. 

12 As to, or as regards, drowning. A not uncommon use of for. — Gon- 
zalo has in mind the old proverb, " He that is born to be hanged will never 
be drowned." 

13 ( A ship's courses are her largest lower sails ; " so called," says Holt, 
" because they contribute most to give her way through the water, and thus 
enable her to feel the helm, and steer her course better than when they are 
not set or spread to the wind.T Captain Glascock, another sailor critic, 
comments thus : " The ship's head is to be put leeward, and the vessel to 
be drawn ,off the land under that canvas nautically denominated the two 
courses." f To lay a ship a-hold is to bring her to lie as near the wind as 
she can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to seaj So Ad- 
miral Smith, in his Sailors' Wordbook : " A hold : A term of our early navi- 
gators, for bringing a ship close to the wind, so as to hold or keep to it." 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 47 

Re-enter Mariners, wet. 

Mariners. All lost ! to prayers, to prayers ! all lost ! 

[Exeunt. 
Boats. What, must our mouths be cold ? 
Gonza. The King and Prince at prayers ! let us assist 
them, 
For our case is as theirs. 

Sebas. I'm out of patience. 

Anto. We're merely 14 cheated out of our lives by drunk- 
ards. 
This wide-chopp'd rascal — would thou mightst lie drown- 

The washing of ten tides ! 

Gonza. He'll be hang'd yet, 

Though every drop of water swear against it, 
And gape at widest to glut him. 15 

A confused noise within. Mercy on us ! We split, we 
split ! — • Farewell, my wife and children ! — Farewell, bro- 
ther ! — We split, we split, we split ! [Exit Boatswain. 

Anto. Let's all' sink wi' th' King. 16 [Exit. 

Sebas. Let's take leave of him. [Exit. 

Gonza. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for 
an acre of barren ground ; ling, heath, broom, furze, any 

14 Merely, here, is zitterly or absolutely. A frequent usage. So in Hamlet, 
i. 2: "Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely." 

15 Glut for englut ; that is, swallow up. — Widest is here a monosyllable. 
The same with many words that are commonly two syllables. 

16 This double elision of with and the, so as to draw the two into one 
syllable, is quite frequent, especially in the Poet's later plays. So before in 
this scene : " Bring her to try wi' th' main course." Single elisions for the 
same purpose, such as by th', forth', from th' , to th' , &c, are still more fre- 
quent. So in the first speech of the next scene : " Mounting to th' welkin's 
cheek." 



48 ' THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

thing. 17 The wills above 18 be done ! but I would fain die a 
dry death. 19 {Exit. 

Scene II. — The Island : befoi-e the Cell of Prospero. 

Enter Prospero and Miranda. 

Mira. If by your art, my dearest father, you have 
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. 
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, 
But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek, 1 
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd 
With those that I saw suffer ! a brave 2 vessel, 
Who had no doubt some noble creature^ in her, 

17 Ling, heath, broom, and furze were names of plants growing on British 
barrens. So in Harrison's description of Britain, prefixed to Holinshed : 
"Bivme, heth,firze, brakes, whinnes, ling, &c." 

18 Of course, " the wills above " is the will of the Powers above. 

19 The first scene of The Tempest is a very striking instance of the great 
accuracy of Shakespeare's knowledge in a professional science, the most 
difficult to attain without the help of experience. He must have acquired 
it by conversation with some of the most skilful seamen of that time. The 
succession of events is strictly observed in the natural progress of the dis- 
tress described ; the expedients adopted are the most proper that could 
have been devised for a chance of safety : and it is neither to the want of 
skill of the seamen or the bad qualities of the ship, but solely to the power 
of Prospero, that the shipwreck is to be attributed. The words of command 
are not only strictly proper, but are only such as point the object to be attained, 
and no superfluous ones of detail. Shakespeare's ship was too well manned 
to make it necessary to tell the seamen how they were to do it, as well as 
what they were to do. — Lord Mulgrave. 

1 Welkin is sky. 1 ! We have other like expressions ; as, "the cloudy cheeks 
of heaven," in Richard the Second, and "the wide cheeks o' the air," in 
Coriolanus. — The hyperbole of waves rolling sky-high occurs repeatedly. 
So in The Winter's Tale, iii. 3 : " Now the ship boring the Moon with her 
main-mast, and anon swallowed with yeast and froth." And in Othello, ii. 1 : 
" The wind-shaked surge seems to cast water on the burning bear." 

2 Brave \%fine or splendid; like the Scottish draw. Repeatedly so in this 
play, as also elsewhere. 



scene ii. THE TEMPEST. 49 

Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock 
Against my very heart ! Poor souls, they perish'd ! 
Had I been any god of power, I would 
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er 3 
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and 
The fraughting souls 4 within her. 

Pros. Be collected ; 

No more amazement : 5 tell your piteous heart 
There's no harm done. 

Mira. O, woe the day ! 

Pros. No harm. 

I have done nothing but in care of thee, — 
Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, — who 
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing 
Of whence I am ; nor that I am more better 6 
Than Prospero, master of a full-poor cell, 
And thy no greater father. 

Mira. More to know 

Did never meddle 7 with my thoughts. 

Pros. 'Tis time 

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, 
And pluck my magic garment from me. — So : 

[Lays down his robe. 

3 Or e'er is before or sooner than. So in Ecclesiastes, xii. 6 : "Or ever the 
silver cord be loosed." See, also, Hamlet, page 62, note 31. 

4 Fraught is an old form of freight. Present usage would require fraughted. 
In Shakespeare's time, the active and passive forms were very often used 
indiscriminately. So, here, " fraughting souls " is freighted souls, or souls 
on freight. 

6 The sense of amazement was much stronger than it is now. Here it is 
anguish or distress of mind. 

6 This doubling of comparatives occurs continually in all the writers of 
Shakespeare's time. The same with superlatives. 

7 To meddle is, properly, to mix, to ?ningle. 



50 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Lie there, my art. 8 — Wipe thou thine eyes ; have comfort. 

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd 

The very virtue of compassion in thee, 

I have with such prevision in mine art 

So safely order'd, that there is no soul 9 — 

No, not so much perdition as an hair 

Betid to any creature in the vessel 

Which thou heard 'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down ; 

For thou must now know further. 

Mira. You have often 

Begun to tell me what I am ; but stopp'd, 
And left me to a bootless inquisition, 
Concluding, Stay, not yet. 

Pros. The hour's now come ; 

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear : 
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember 
A time before we came unto this cell ? 
I do not think thou canst ; for then thou wast not 
Out three years old. 10 

Mira. Certainly, sir, I can. 

Pros. By what ? by any other house or person ? 
Of any thing the image tell me that 
Hath kept with thy remembrance. 

Mira. 'Tis far off, 

And rather like a dream than an assurance 
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not 

8 Lord Burleigh, at night when he put off his gown, used to say, " Lie 
there, Lord Treasurer " ; and, bidding adieu to all State affairs, disposed 
himself to his quiet rest. — Fuller's Holy State. 

9 The sense is here left incomplete, and purposely, no doubt. Prospero 
has many like changes of construction in this part of the scene. 

10 Not fully three years old. We have a like use of out in iv. i : " But 
play with sparrows, and be a boy right out." 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 5 1 

Four or five women once that tended me ? 

Pros. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it 
That this lives in thy mind ? What see'st thou else 
In the dark backward and abysm 11 of time? 
If thou remember'st aught ere thou earnest here, 
How thou earnest here, thou mayst. 12 

Mira. But that I do not. 

Pros. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year 13 since, 
Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and 
A prince of power. 

Mira. Sir, are you not my father? 

Pros. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and 
She said thou wast my daughter ; and thy father 
Was Duke of Milan ; thou his only heir, 
A princess, — no worse issued. 

Mira. O the Heavens ! 

What foul play had we, that we came from thence ? 
Or blessed was't we did? 

Pros. Both, both, my girl : 

By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence j 
But blessedly holp 14 hither. 

Mira. O, my heart bleeds 

To think o' the teen 15 that I have turn'd you to, 

11 Abysm is an old form of abyss ; from the old French abisme. 

12 " If thou remember'st aught ere thou earnest here, thou mayst also 
remember how thou earnest here." 

13 In words denoting time, space, and quantity, the singular form was 
often used with the plural sense. So we have mile and. pound for miles and 
pounds. — In this line, the first year is two syllables, the second one. Often 
so with various other words, such as hour, fire, &c. 

14 Holp or holpen is the old preterite of help ; occurring continually in The 
Psalter, which is an older translation of the Psalms than that in the Bible. 

15 Teen is an old word for trouble, a?zxiety, or sorrow. So in Love's La- 
bours Lost, iv. 3 : "Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen." 



52 THE TEMPEST. act i. 

Which is from my remembrance ! Please you, further. 

Pros. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio, — 
I pray thee, mark me ; — that a brother should 
Be so perfidious ! — he whom, next thyself, 
Of all the world I loved, and to him put 
The manage 16 of my State ; as, at that time, 
Through all the signiories it was the first, 17 
And Prospero the prime Duke ; being so reputed 
In dignity, and for the liberal arts 
Without a parallel : those being all my study, 
The government I cast upon my brother, 
And to my State grew stranger, being transported 
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle, — 
Dost thou attend me ? 

Mira. Sir, most needfully. 

Pros. — Being once perfected how to grant suits, 
How to deny them ; who 18 t' advance, and who 
To trash for over- topping, 19 — new-created 
The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em, 
Or else new-form'd 'em ; having both the key 
Of officer and office, 20 set all hearts i' the State 
To what tune pleased his ear ; that 21 now he was 

16 Manage for management or administration. Repeatedly so. 

17 Signiory for lordship or ■principality. Botero, in his Relations of the 
World, 1630, says, " Milan claims to be the first duchy in Europe." 

18 This use of who where present usage requires whom was not ungram- 
matical in Shakespeare's time. 

19 To trash for overtopping is to check the overgrowth, to reduce the ex- 
orbitancy. The word seems to have been a hunting-term for checking the 
speed of hounds when too forward ; the trash being a strap or rope fastened 
to the dog's neck, and dragging on the ground. The sense of clogg'mg or 
keeping back is the right antithesis to advance. 

20 " The key of officer and office " is the tuning key ; as of a piano. 

21 That is here equivalent to so that, or insomuch that. Continually so 
in old poetry, and not seldom in old prose. 



scene II. THE TEMPEST. 53 

The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, 

And suck'd the verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not. 22 

Mira. O good sir, I do. 

Pros. I pray thee, mark me. 

I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated 
To closeness, and the bettering of my mind 
With that which, but 23 by being so retired, 
O'er-prized all popular rate, 24 in my false brother- 
Awaked an evil nature ; and my trust, 
Like a good parent, did beget of him 
A falsehood, in its contrary as great 
As my trust was ; which had indeed no limit, 
A confidence sans 25 bound. He being thus lorded, 
Not only with what my revenue 26 yielded, 
But what my power might else exact, — like one 
Who having unto truth, by falsing of it, 27 

22 The old gentleman thinks his daughter is not attending to his tale, 
because his own thoughts keep wandering from it ; his mind being filled 
with other things, — the tempest he has got up, and the consequences of it. 
This absence or distraction of mind aptly registers itself in the irregular and 
broken style of his narrative. 

23 This is the exceptive but, as it is called, and has the force of be out, of 
which it is, indeed, an old contraction. So later in this scene : " And, but 
he's something stain'd with grief," &c. ; where but evidently has the force 
of except that. 

24 The meaning seems to be, " Which would have exceeded all popular 
estimate, but that it withdrew me from my public duties " ; as if he were 
sensible of his error in getting so " rapt in secret studies " as to leave the 
State a prey to violence and usurpation. 

25 Sans is the French equivalent for without. The Poet uses it whenever 
he wants a monosyllable with that meaning. 

26 Shakespeare, in a few instances, has revenue with the accent on the 
first syllable, as in the vulgar pronunciation of our time. Here the accent 
is on the second syllable, as it should be. See Hamlet, page 135, note 8. 

27 The verb to false was often used for to treat falsely, to falsify, to forge, 
to lie. So in Cymbeline, ii. 3 : " And make Diana's rangers false them- 



54 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Made such a sinner of his memory 

To credit 28 his own lie, — he did believe 

He was indeed the Duke ; out o' the substitution, 29 

And executing the outward face of royalty, 

With all prerogative : hence his ambition growing, — 

Dost thou hear? 30 

Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. 

Pros. To have no screen between this part he play'd 
And them he play'd it for, 31 he needs will be 
Absolute Milan. Me, 32 poor man, my library 
Was dukedom large enough : of temporal royalties 
He thinks me now incapable ; confederates — 
So dry he was for sway 33 — wi' th' King of Naples 
To give him annual tribute, do him homage, 
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend 
The dukedom, yet unbow'd, — alas, poor Milan ! — 
To most ignoble stooping. 

selves." And in The Faerie Quee?ze, ii. i, I : " Whom Princes late displeas- 
ure left in bands, for falsed letters." Also in i. 3, 30 : " And in his falsed 
fancy he her takes to be the fairest wight," &c. And in Drant's Horace: 
" The taverner that falseth othes, and little reckes to lye." — The pronoun 
it may refer to truth, or may be used absolutely ; probably the former. The 
Poet has such phrases as to prince it, for to act the prince, and to monster it 
for to be a monster. And so the word is often used now in all sorts of speech 
and writing; as to braze it out, and to foot it through. See Critical Notes. 

28 " As to credit " is the meaning. The Poet often omits as in such 
cases. Sometimes he omits both of the correlatives so and as. 

29 That is, " in consequence of his being my substitute or deputy." 

30 In this place, hear was probably meant as a dissyllable ; just as year a 
little before. So, at all events, the verse requires. 

31 This is well explained by Mr. P. A. Daniel : " Prospero was the screen 
behind which the traitorous Antonio governed the people of Milan ; and, to 
remove this screen between himself and them, he conspired his brother's 
overthrow." 

32 "Forme" is the meaning. Such ellipses are frequent. 

33 So thirsty for power or rule ; no uncommon use of dry now. 



scene II. THE TEMPEST. 55. 

Mira. O the Heavens ! 

Pros. Mark his condition, and th' event ; 34 then tell me, 
If this might be a brother. 

Mira. I should sin 

To think but nobly 35 of my grandmother. 

Pros. Good wombs have borne bad sons. Now the con- 
dition : 
This King of Naples, being an enemy 
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit ; 
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises, 36 — 
Of homage, and I know not how much tribute, — 
Should presently 37 extirpate me and mine 
Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan, 
With all the honours, on my brother : whereon, 
A treacherous army levied, one midnight 
Fated to th' practice 38 did Antonio open 
The gates of Milan ; and, i' the dead of darkness, 
The ministers for th' purpose hurried thence 
Me and thy crying self. 

Mira. Alack, for pity ! 

I, not remembering how I cried on't then, 
Will cry it o'er again : it is a hint 39 
That wrings mine eyes to't. 

Pros. Hear a little further, 

34 Condition is the terms of his compact with the King of Naples ; event, 
the consequences that followed. 

35 "But nobly " is otherwise t/zan nobly, of course. 

36 In lieu of is in return for, or in consideration of. Shakespeare never 
uses the phrase in its present meaning, instead of. 

37 Presently is immediately or forthwith. A frequent usage. 

38 Plot, stratagem, contrivance are old meanings of practice. 

39 Hint for cause or theme. A frequent usage. So again in ii. 1 : " Our 
hint of woe is common." 



56 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

And then I'll bring thee to the present business 
Which now's upon's ; without the which this story- 
Were most impertinent. 40 

Mira. Wherefore did they not 

That hour destroy us ? 

Pros. Well demanded, jvench : 41 

My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not — 
So dear the love my people bore me — set 
A mark so bloody on the business ; but 
With colours fairer painted their foul ends. 
In few, 42 they hurried us aboard a bark, * 

Bore us some leagues to sea ; where they prepared 
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd, 
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast ; the very rats 
Instinctively had quit it : there they hoist us, 43 
To cry to th' sea that roar'd to us ; to sigh 
To th' winds, whose pity, sighing back again, 
Did us but loving wrong. 

Mira. Alack, what trouble 

Was I then to you ! 

Pros. O, a cherubin 

Thou wast that did preserve me ! Thou didst smile, 
Infused with a fortitude from Heaven, 
When I have_degg'd 44 the sea with drops full salt, 

40 Impertinent is irreleva?it t or otit of place ; not pertinetit ; the old mean- 
ing of the word. The Poet never uses irrelevant. 

41 Wench was a common term of affectionate familiarity. 

42 That is, in few words, in short. Often so. 

43 Hoist for hoisted; as, a little before, quit for quitted. So in Hamlet, 
iii. 4 : " 'Tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petar." The 
Poet has many preterites so formed. And the same usage occurs in The 
Psalter; as in the 93d Psalm : " The floods are risen, O Lord, the floods 
have lift up their voice." 

_ 44 To deg is an old provincial word for to sprinkle. So explained in 



SCENE ii. THE TEMPEST. 57 

Under my burden groan'd ; which raised in me 
An undergoing stomach, 45 to bear up 
Against what should ensue. 

Mir a. How came we ashore ? 

Pros. By Providence divine. 
Some food we had, and some fresh water, that 
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, 
Out of his charity, — being then appointed 
Master of this design, — did give us ; with 
Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries, 
Which since have steaded much ; 46 so, of his gentleness, 
Knowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me, 
From mine own library, with volumes that 
I prize above my dukedom. 

Mir a. Would I might 

But ever see that man ! 

Pros. Now I arise : 47 



Carr's Glossary : " To deg clothes is to sprinkle them with water previous to 
ironing." And in Atkinson's Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect, degg or 
dagg is explained " to sprinkle with water, to drizzle." Also, in Brockett's 
Glossary of North- Country Words: "Dag, a drizzling rain, dew upon the 
grass." — The foregoing quotations are from the Clarendon edition. See 
Critical Notes. 

45 An undergoing stomach is an enduring courage. Shakespeare uses 
stomach repeatedly for courage. 

46 Have stood us in good stead, or done us much service. 

47 These words have been a great puzzle to the editors, and various ex- 
planations of them have been given. Staunton prints them as addressed to 
Ariel, and thinks this removes the difficulty. So taken, the words are meant 
to give Ariel notice that the speaker is now ready for his services in charm- 
ing Miranda to sleep. But this does not seem to me very likely, as it makes 
Prospero give Ariel a second notice, in his next speech. So I rather adopt 
the explanation of Mr. William Aldis Wright, who thinks Prospero means 
that " the crisis in his own fortunes has come " ; that he is now about to 
emerge from the troubles of which he has been speaking ; and that he re- 



58 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. 
Here in this island we arrived ; and here 
Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit 48 
Than other princesses can, that have more time 
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful. 

Mira. Heavens thank you for't ! And now, I pray you, 
sir, — 
For still 'tis beating in my mind, — your reason 
For raising this sea-storm ? 

Pros. Know thus far forth : 

By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune — 
Now my dear lady — hath mine enemies 
Brought to this shore ; and by my prescience 
-I find my zenith 49 doth depend upon 
A most auspicious star, whose influence 
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes 
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions : 
Thou art inclined to sleep ; 'tis a good dulness, 
And give it way : I know thou canst not choose. 50 — 

[Miranda sleeps. 

gards this " reappearance from obscurity as a kind of resurrection, like the 
rising of the Sun." This view is fully approved by Mr. Joseph Crosby. 

48 Profit is here a verb : " Have caused thee to profit more," &c. 

49 The common explanation of this is, " In astrological language zenith 
is the highest point in one's fortunes." But I much prefer Mr. Crosby's ex- 
planation, who writes me as follows : " Note, here, the blending of fdeas by 
the speaker : he means to say, ' My fortune depends upon a star which, 
being now in its zenith, is auspicious to me.' " 

50 In the second scene, Prospero's speeches, till the entrance of Ariel, 
contain the finest example I remember of retrospective narration for the 
purpose of exciting immediate interest, and putting the audience in posses- 
sion of all the information necessary for the understanding of the plot. Ob- 
serve, too, the perfect probability of the moment chosen by Prospero to open 
out the truth to his daughter, his own romantic bearing, and how com- 
pletely any thing that might have been disagreeable to us in the magician 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 59 

Come away, servant, come ! I'm ready now : 
Approach, my Ariel ; come ! 

Enter Ariel. 

Ari. All hail, great master ! grave sir, hail ! I come 
To answer thy best pleasure ; be't to fly, 
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride 
On the curl'd clouds : to thy strong bidding task 
Ariel and all his quality. 51 

Pros. Hast thou, spirit, 

Perform'd to point 59 the tempest that I bade thee ? 

Ari. To every article. 
I boarded the King's ship ; now on the beak, 
Now in the waist, 53 the deck, in every cabin, 
I flamed amazement : sometime I'd divide, 
And burn in many places ; on the top-mast, 
The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, 54 
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors 
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary 55 
And sight-outrunning were not : the fire, and cracks 
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune 

is reconciled and shaded in the humanity and natural feelings of the father. 
In the very first speech of Miranda the simplicity and tenderness of her 
character are at once laid open ; it would have been lost in direct contact 
with the agitation of the first scene. — Coleridge. 

51 That is, all of his kind, all his fellow-spirits, or who are like him. 

52 Perform'd exactly, or in every point ; from the French a, point. 

53 Beak, the prow of the ship ; waist, the part between the quarter-deck 
and forecastle. 

54 So in the account of Robert Tomson's voyage, 1555, quoted by Mr. 
Hunter : " This light Continued aboard our ship about three hours, flying 
from mast to mast, and from top to top ; and sometimes it would be in two 
or three places at once." In the text, distinctly has the sense of separately ; 
flaming in different places at the same time. 

55 Mometitary in the sense of instantaneous. 



6o THE TEMPEST. 



ACT I. 



Seem ? d to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble, 
Yea, his dread trident shake. 

Pros. My brave spirit ! 

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil 56 
Would not infect his reason ? 

Ari. Not a soul 

But felt a fever of the mad, 57 and play'd 
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners 
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, 
Then all a-fire with me : the King's son, Ferdinand, 
With hair up-staring, 58 — then like reeds, not hair, — 
Was the first man that leap'd ; cried, Hell is empty. 
And all the devils are here. 

Pros. Why, that's my spirit ! 

But was not this nigh shore ? 

Ari. Close by, my master. 

Pros. But are they, Ariel, safe ? 

Art. Not a hair perish'd ; 

On their unstaining 59 garments not a blemish, 
But fresher than before : and, as thou badest me, 
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle. 
The King's son have I landed by himself; 

56 Coil is stir, tumult, or disturbance. 

57 Such a fever as madmen feel when the frantic fit is on them. 

58 Upstaring is sticking out " like quills upon the fretful porpentine." So 
in Tke Faerie Queene, vi. II, 27 : " With ragged weedes, and locks upstaring 
hye." And in Julius Ccesar, iv. 3 : " Art thou some god, some angel, or 
some devil, that makest my blood cold, and my hair to stare f" 

59 Unstaining for unstained ; another instance of the indiscriminate use 
of active and passive forms. This usage, both in participles and adjectives, 
is frequent all through these plays. So, in The Winter's Tale, iv. 4, we have 
" discontenting father " for discontented father ; and in Antony and Cleo- 
patra, iii. 13, " all-obeying breath " for oXl-obeyed breath, that is, breath that 
all obey. See, also, page 49, note 4. 



SCENE II. 



THE TEMPEST. 6 1 



Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs 
In an odd angle 60 of the isle, and sitting, 
His arms in this sad knot. 61 

Pros. Of the King's ship 

The mariners, say, how hast thou disposed, 
And all the rest o' the fleet? 

Ari. Safely in harbour 

Is the King's ship ; in the deep nook, where once 
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew 
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, 62 there she's hid : 
The mariners all under hatches stow'd ; 
Who, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour, 
I've left asleep : and, for the rest o' the fleet 
Which I dispersed, they all have met again, 
And are upon the Mediterranean flote, 63 
Bound sadly home for Naples ; 
Supposing that they saw the King's ship wreck'd, 
And his great person perish. 

Pros. Ariel, thy charge 

Exactly is perform'd : but there's more work. 

60 Odd angle is insignificant or out-of-the-way corner. 

61 His arms folded up as in sorrowful meditation. 

62 Still-vex'd is ever-troubled. The Poet very often uses still in the sense 
of ever or continually. The Bermudas were supposed to be inhabited or 
haunted by witches and devils, and the sea around them to be agitated with 
perpetual storms. Bermoothes was then the common spelling of Bermudas. 
So in Fletcher's Women Pleased, i. 2 : " The Devil should think of purchas- 
ing that egg-shell, to victual such a witch for the Burmoothes." Also in 
Webster's Duchess of Malfi, iii. 2 : " I would sooner swim to the Ber- 
mootha's on two politicians' rotten bladders." 

§ 3 Flote, like the French fiot, is food, wave, or sea. This passage shows 

that the scene of the play is ?iot laid in the Bermudas, as there has not been 
time for the rest of the fleet to sail so far. And Ariel's trip to fetch the dew 
mentioned above was a much greater feat than going from one part of the 
Bermoothes to another. 



62 THE TEMPEST. act I. 

What is the time o' the day ? 

Ari. Past the mid season, 

At least two glasses. 64 

Pros. The time 'twixt six and now 

Must by us both be spent most preciously. 

Ari. Is there more toil ? Since thou dost give me pains. 
Let me remember 65 thee what thou hast promised, 
Which is not yet perform'd me. 

Pros. How now ! moody ? 

What is't thou canst demand ? 

Art. My liberty. 

Pros. Before the time be out? no more ! 

Ari. I pr'ythee, 

Remember I have done thee worthy service ; 
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served 
Without or grudge or grumblings : thou didst promise 
To bate me a full year. 

Pros. Dost thou forget 

From what a torment I did free thee ? 

Ari. No. 

Pros. Thou dost ; and think'st it much to tread the ooze 
Of the salt deep ; to run upon the sharp 
Wind of the North ; to do me business in 
The veins o' the earth when it is baked with frost. 

Ari. I do not, sir. 

Pros. Thou liest, malignant thing ! 66 Hast thou forgot 
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy 67 

: ___ 64 Two glasses is two winnings of the hour-glass. 

65 Remember for remind, or put in mind. Often so. 

66 Prospero should not be supposed to say this in earnest : he is merely 
playing with his delicate and amiable minister. 

67 Here, as commonly in Shakespeare, envy is malice. And so he has 
envious repeatedly for malicious. The usage was common. 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 63 

Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her? 

Ari. No, sir. 

Pros. Thou hast : where was she born ? speak ; 

tell me. 

Ari. Sir, in Argier. 68 

Pros. O, was she so? I must 

Once in a month recount what thou hast been, 
Which thou forgett'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax, 
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible 
To enter human hearing, from Argier, 
Thou know'st, was banish'd : for one thing she had, 69 
They would not take her life. Is not this true ? 

Ari. Ay, sir. 

Pros. This blue-eyed hag 70 was hither brought, 
And here was left by th' sailors. Thou, my slave, 
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant ; 
And, for 71 thou wast a spirit too delicate 
To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, 
Refusing her grand hests, 72 she did confine thee, 
By help of her more potent ministers, 
And in her most unmitigable rage, 
Into a cloven pine ; 73 within which rift 

68 Argier is the old English name for Algiers. 

69 What this one thing was, appears in Prospero's next speech. 

70 Blue-eyed and blue eyes were used, not for what we so designate, but 
for blueness about the eyes. So, in As You Like It, iii. 2, we have " a blue 
eye, and a sunken," to denote a gaunt, haggard, and cadaverous look. And 
so, in the text, blue-eyed is used as signifying extreme ugliness. In the Poet's 
time, what we call blue eyes were commonly called gray, and were consid- 
ered eminently beautiful. 

71 Here, as often, for is because. See The Merchant, page 96, note 6. 

72 Hests is commands, orders, or behests. 

73 Into and in were often used indiscriminately. Here, however, I sus- 
pect the sense of both words is implied ; " She thrust you into a splitted 
pine, and there fastened you in" 



64 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain 

A dozen years ; within which space she died, 

And left thee there ; where thou didst vent thy groans 

As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island — 

Save for the son that she did litter here, 

A freckled whelp, hag-born — not honour'd with 

A human shape. 

Art. Yes, Caliban her son. 

Pros. Dull thing, I say so ; he, that Caliban, 
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st 
What torment I did find thee in : thy groans 
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts 
Of ever-angry bears. It was a torment 
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax 
Could not again undo : it was mine art, 
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape 
The pine, and let thee out. 

Art. I thank thee, master. 

Pros. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, 
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till 
Thou'st howl'd away twelve Winters. 

Art. Pardon, master : 

I will be correspondent 74 to command, 
And do my spriting gently. 

Pros. Do so ; and after two days 

I will discharge thee. 

Art. That's my noble master ! 

What shall I do ? say what ; what shall I do ? 

Pros. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea : 
Be subject to no sight but mine ; invisible 
To every eyeball else. Go take this shape, 

74 Correspondent for responsive ; that is, obedient, or submissive. 



SCENE ii. THE TEMPEST. 65 

And hither come in't : hence, with diligence ! — 

{Exit Ariel. 
Awake, dear heart, awake ! thou hast slept well ; 
Awake ! 

Mir a. { Waking.'] The strangeness of your story put 
Heaviness in me. 

Pros. Shake it off. Come on ; 

We'll visit Caliban my slave, who never 
Yields us kind answer. 

Mira. Tis a viliain, sir, 

I do not love to look on. 

Pros. But, as 'tis, 

We cannot miss him : 75 he does make our fire, 
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices 
That profit us. — What, ho ! slave ! Caliban ! 
Thou earth, thou ! speak. 

Cat. { Within.] There's wood enough within. 

Pros. Come forth, I say ! there's other business for thee : 
Come forth, thou tortoise ! when ! 76 — 

Re-enter Ariel, like a Water-nymph. 

Fine apparition ! My quaint 77 Ariel, 
Hark in thine ear. 

Ari. My lord, it shall be done. {Exit. 

Pros. Thou poisonous slave, come forth ! 

Enter Caliban. 
Cat. As wicked dew 78 as e'er my mother brush'd 

75 Cannot do without him, or cannot spare him. So in Lyly's Euphues : 
" Honey and wax, both so necessary that we cannot miss them." 

76 When! was in common use as an exclamation of impatience. 

77 Ingenious, artful, adroit, are old meanings of quaint. 

78 " Wicked dew " is, probably, dew that has been cu v sed, and so made 
poisonous or baleful. See Critical Notes. 



66 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

With raven's feather from unwholesome fen 
Drop on you both ! a south-west blow on ye, 
And blister you all o'er ! 79 

Pros. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, 
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up ; urchins 80 
Shall, for that vast 8l of night that they may work, 
All exercise on thee ; thou shalt be pinch'd 
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging 
Than bees that made 'em. 82 

Cal. I must eat my dinner. 

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, 
Which thou takest from me. When thou earnest here first, 
Thou strokedst me, and madest much of me ; wouldst give me 
Water with berries in't ; 83 and teach me how 
To name the bigger light, and how the less, 
That burn by day and night : and then I loved thee, 
And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, 
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile : 

79 The Poet repeatedly ascribes a blighting virulence to the south-west 
wind ; perhaps because, in England, that wind often comes charged with 
the breath of the Gulf-stream. So he has " the south-fog rot him ! " and "all 
the contagion of the south light on you ! " 

80 Urchins were fairies of a particular class. Hedgehogs were also called 
urchins ; and it is probable that the sprites were so named, because they 
were of a mischievous kind, the urchin being anciently deemed a very 
noxious animal. 

81 So in Hamlet, i. 2," in the dead vast and middle of the night"; mean- 
ing the silent void or vacancy of night, when spirits were anciently sup- 
posed to walk abroad on errands of love or sport or mischief. 

82 Honeycomb is here regarded as plural, probably in reference to the 
cells of which honeycomb is composed. 

83 It does not well appear what this was. Coffee was known, but, I 
think, not used, in England in Shakespeare's time. Burton, in his Anatomy 
of Melancholy, 1632, has the following : " The Turks have a drink called 
coffa, so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter." 



SCENE II. 



THE TEMPEST. 67 



Cursed be I that did so ! All the charms 

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you ! 

For I am all the subjects that you have, 

Which first was mine own king : and here you sty me 

In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me 

The rest o' the island. 

Pros. Thou most lying slave, 

Whom stripes may move, not kindness, I have used thee, 
Filth as thou art, with human care ; and lodged thee 
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate 
The honour of my child. 

CaL O ho, O ho ! would 't had been done ! 
Thou didst prevent me ; I had peopled else 
This isle with Calibans. 

Pros. ' Abhorred slave, 

Which any print of goodness wilt not take, 
Being capable of all ill ! I pitied thee, 
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour 
One thing or other : when thou didst not, savage, 
Know thine own meaning, 84 but wouldst gabble like 
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes 
With words that made them known. But thy vile race, 
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures 
Could not abide to be with ; therefore wast thou 

84 Did not attach any meaning to the sounds he uttered. — Coleridge re- 
marks upon Caliban as follows : " Caliban is all earth, all condensed and 
gross in feelings and images ; he has the dawnings of understanding, with- 
out reason or the moral sense ; and in him, as in some brute animals, this 
advance to the intellectual faculties, without the moral sense, is marked by 
the appearance of vice. For it is in the primacy of the moral being only 
that man is truly human; in his intellectual powers he is certainly ap- 
proached by the brutes ; and, man's whole system duly considered, those 
powers cannot be viewed as other than means to an end, that is, mo- 
rality." 



68 THE TEMPEST. 



ACT I. 



Deservedly confined into this rock, 
Who hadst deserved more than a prison. 

Cat. You taught me language ; and my profit on't 
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid 85 you 
For learning me your language ! 

Pros. Hag-seed, hence ! 

Fetch us in fuel ; and be quick, thou'rt best, 
To answer other business. Shrugg'st thou, malice ? 
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly 
What I command, I'll rack thee with old 86 cramps, 
Fill all thy bones with aches, 87 make thee roar, 
That beasts shall tremble at thy din. 

Cal. No, pray thee. — 

[Aside ?± I must obey : his art is of such power, 
It would control my dam's god, Setebos, 88 
And make a vassal of him. 

Pros. So, slave ; hence ! 

[Exit Caliban. 

85 Rid here means destroy or dispatch. So in Richard the Second, v. 4 : 
" I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe." — Touching the" red plague," 
Halliwell quotes from Practise of Physicke, 1605 : " Three different kinds of 
plague-sore are mentioned; sometimes it is red, otherwhiles yellow, and 
sometimes blacke, which is the very worst and most venimous." 

86 Old was much used simply as an intensive, just as huge often is now. 
The Poet has it repeatedly. See The Merchant, page 181, note 2. 

87 Ache was formerly pronounced like the letter H. The plural, aches, 
was accordingly two syllables. We have many instances of such pronunci- 
ation in the old writers. So in Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 7 : " I had a wound 
here that was like a T, but now 'tis made an H." It is said that Kemble 
the actor undertook to revive the old pronunciation of aches on the stage ; 
but the audience would not stand it, and hissed him out of it. 

88 Setebos was the name of an American god, or rather devil, worshipped 
by the Patagonians. In Eden's History o/Travaile, 1577, is an account of 
Magellan's voyage to the South Pole, containing a description of this god 
and his worshippers ; wherein the author says : " When they felt the shackles 
fast about their legs, they began to doubt ; but the captain did put them in 



scene ii. THE TEMPEST. 69 

Re-enter Ariel invisible, playing and singing ; Ferdinand 

following. 

Ariel's Song. 

Come unto these yellow sands, 

And then take hands : 
Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd 

The wild waves whist, 89 
Foot it featly here and there ; 
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. 

Burden dispersedly. 



Hark, hark ! 
The watch-dogs bark : 
Hark, hark ! I hear 
The strain of strutting chanticleer. 



Bow-wow. 
Bow-wow. 

Cock-a-diddle-dow. 



Ferd. Where should this music be? i' the air, or th' 
earth ? 
It sounds no more : and, sure, it waits upon 
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank, 
Weeping again the King my father's wreck, 
This music crept by me upon the waters, 
Allaying both their fury and my passion 90 
With its sweet air : thence I have follow'd it, 
Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone. 
No, it begins again. 

Ariel sings. 

Full fathom five thy father lies ; 
Of his bones are coral made ^ 

comfort and bade them stand still. In fine, when they saw how they were 
deceived, they roared like bulls, and cryed upon their great devil Setebos, to 
help them." 

89 Soothed or charmed the raging waters into stillness or peace. 

90 Passion is here used in its proper Latin sense of suffering. 



*]0 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Those are pearls that were his eyes : 

Nothing of him that doth fade 
But doth suffer a sea-change 91 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : 

Burden. Ding-dong. 

Hark ! now I hear them, — Ding-dong, bell. 

Ferd. The ditty does remember my drown'd father. 
This is no mortal business, nor no sound 
That the Earth owes. 92 I hear it now above me. 

Pros. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, 93 
And say what thou see'st yond. 

Mira. What is't? a spirit? 

Lord, how it looks about ! Believe me, sir, 
It carries a brave 94 form. But 'tis a spirit. 

Pros. No, wench; 95 it eats and sleeps, and hath such 
senses 
As we have, such. This gallant which thou see'st 
Was in the wreck ; and, but he's something stain'd 

91 Nothing fades without undergoing a sea-change. This use of but 
occurs repeatedly. So in Hamlet, i. 3 : " Do not sleep but let me hear 
from you ; " that is, " without letti7ig me hear." See, also, Macbeth, page 99, 
note 6. 

92 Owe is own, possess. The old form of the word was owen. Abbott, in 
his Shakespeare Grammar, has the following: "In the general destruction 
of inflections which prevailed during the Elizabethan period, en was par-, 
ticularly discarded. So strong was the discarding tendency, that even the 
n in owen, to possess, was dropped, and Shakespeare continually uses owe 
for owen, or own. The n has now been restored." 

93 Advance, here, is raise or lift up. So in Romeo and, Juliet, ii. 3 : " Ere 
the Sun advance his burning eye." Especially used of lifting up military 
standards. 

94 Brave, again, for fine or superb. See page 48, note 2. 

95 Wench was often used thus as a term of playful familiarity, without 
implying any thing of reproach or contempt. 



SCENE ii. THE TEMPEST. 7 1 

With grief, that's beauty's canker, 96 thou mightst call him 
A goodly person : he hath lost his fellows, 
And strays about to find 'em. 

Mira. I might call him 

A thing divine ; for nothing natural 
I ever saw so noble. 

Pros. \_Aside.~\ It goes on, I see, 
As my soul prompts it. — Spirit, fine spirit ! I'll free thee 
Within two days for this. 

Ferd. Most sure, the goddess 

On whom these airs attend ! — Vouchsafe my prayer 
May know if you remain upon this island ; 
And that you will some good instruction give 
How I may bear me here : my prime request, 
Which I do last pronounce, is, — O you wonder ! — 
If you be maid 97 or no ? 

Mira. No wonder, sir ; 

But certainly a maid. 

Ferd. My language ! Heavens ! — 

I am the best of them that speak this speech, 
Were I but where 'tis spoken. 

Pros. How ! the best ? 

What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee ? 

Ferd. A single thing, 98 as I am now, that wonders 



96 Shakespeare uses canker in four distinct senses, — the canker-worm, 
the dog-rose, a malignant sore, cancer, and rust or tarnish. Here it proba- 
bly means the last ; as in St. James, v. 3 : " Your gold and silver is cankered ; 
and the rust of them shall be a witness against you." 

97 Ferdinand has already spoken of Miranda as a goddess : he now asks, 
if she be a mortal; not a celestial being, but a maiden. Of course her an- 
swer is to be taken in the same sense as his question. The name Miranda 
literally signifies wonderful. 

98 The Poet repeatedly uses single for weak or feeble : here, along with 



72 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me ; 
And that he does I weep : myself am Naples ; 
Who with mine eyes, ne'er since at ebb, beheld 
The King my father wreck'd. 

Mira. Alack, for mercy ! 

Ferd. Yes, faith, and all his lords ; the Duke of Milan 
And his brave son" being twain. 

Pros. [Aside.'] The Duke of Milan 

And his more braver daughter could control thee, 100 
If now 'twere fit to do't. At the first sight 
They have changed eyes. — Delicate Ariel, 
I'll set thee free for this ! — A word, good sir; 
I fear you've done yourself some wrong : 101 a word. 

Mira. Why speaks my father so ungently? This 
Is the third man that e'er I saw ; the first 
That e'er I sigh'd for : pity move my father 
To be inclined my way ! 

Ferd. . O, if a virgin, 

And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you 
The Queen of Naples. 

Pros. Soft, sir ! one word more. — 

[Aside.] They're both in either's powers : but this swift 

business 
I must uneasy make, lest too light winning 

this, it has the further sense of solitary or companionless. Ferdinand sup- 
poses himself to be the only one saved of all that were in the ship. 

99 This young man, the son of Antonio, nowhere appears in the play, nor 
is there any other mention of him. 

100 To control 'was formerly used in the sense of to refute; from the French 
contre-r oiler, to exhibit a contrary account. Prospero means that he could 
refute what Ferdinand has just said about the Duke of Milan. 

l°i " Done wrong to your character, in claiming to be King of Naples." 
Or incurred the penalty of being a spy or an usurper, by assuming a title 
that does not belong to him. 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 73 

Make the prize light. 102 — One word more ; I charge thee 
That thou attend me : Thou dost here usurp 
The name thou owest not ; and hast put thyself 
Upon this island as a spy, to win it 
From me, the lord on't. 

Ferd. No, as I'm a man. 

Mir a. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple : 
If the ill spirit have so fair a house, 
Good things will strive to dwell with't. 

Pros. \To Ferd.] Follow me.— 

Speak not you for him ; he's a traitor. — Come ; 
I'll manacle thy neck and feet together : 
Sea-water shalt thou drink ; thy food shall be 
The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots, and husks 
Wherein the acorn cradled : follow. 

Ferd. No ; 

I will resist such entertainment, till 
Mine enemy has more power. 

\_He draws, and is charmed from moving. 

Mira. O dear father, 

Make not too rash a trial of him, for 
He's gentle, and not fearful. 103 

Pros. What, I say. 

My fool my tutor ! — Put thy sword up, traitor ; 

102 In this scene, as it proceeds, is displayed the impression made by 
Ferdinand and Miranda on each other; it is love at first sight, — "at the 
first sight they have changed eyes." Prospero's interruption of the court- 
ship has often seemed to me to have no sufficient motive ; still, his alleged 
reason, " lest too light winning make the prize light," is enough for the 
ethereal connections of the romantic imagination, although it would not be 
so for the historical. — Coleridge. 

103 This clearly means that Ferdinand is brave and high-spirited, so that, 
if pressed too hard, he will rather die than succumb. It is a good old notion 
that bravery and gentleness naturally go together. 



74 THE TEMPEST. ACT I. 

Who makest a show, but darest not strike, thy conscience 
Is so possess'd with guilt : come from thy ward ; 104 
For I can here disarm thee with this stick, 
And make thy weapon drop. 

Mi?'a. Beseech you, father ! — 

Pros. Hence ! hang not on my garments. 

Mir a. Sir, have pity ; 

I'll be his surety. 

Pros. Silence ! one word more 

Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What ! 
An advocate for an impostor ? hush ! 
Thou think'st there are no more such shapes as he, 
Having seen but him and Caliban : foolish wench !. 
To th' most of men this is a Caliban, 
And they to him are angels. 

Mir a. My affections 

Are, then, most humble ; I have no ambition 
To see a goodlier man. 

Pros. \_To Ferd.] Come on ; obey: 
Thy nerves 105 are in their infancy again, 
And have no vigour in them. 

Ferd. So they are : 

My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up. 
My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, 
The wreck of all my friends, and this man's threats 
To whom I am subdued, are light to me, 
Might I but through my prison once a day 

104 Ward is posture or attitude of defence. Ferdinand is standing with 
his sword drawn, and his body planted, ready for defending himself. So, in 
i Henry the Fourth, ii. 4, Falstaff says, "Thou knowest my old ward: 
here I lay, and thus I bore my point." 

105 Nerves for sinews ; the two words being used indifferently in the 
Poet's time. See Hamlet, page 80, note 20. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 75 

Behold this maid : all corners else o' the Earth 
Let liberty make use of; space enough 
Have I in such a prison. 

Pros. [Aside.'] It works. — \To Ferd.] Come on. — 
Thou hast done well, fine Ariel ! — Follow me. — 
\To Ariel.] Hark, what thou else shalt do me. 

Mir a. Be of comfort ; 106 

My father's of a better nature, sir, 
Than he appears by speech : this is unwonted 
Which now came from him. 

Pros. \To Ariel.] Thou shalt be as free 

As mountain winds : but then exactly do 
All points of my command. 

Art. To th' syllable, 

Pros. Come, follow. — Speak not for him. [Exeunt. 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — Another part of the Island. 

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, Fran- 
cisco, and Others. 

Gonza. Beseech you, sir, be merry : you have cause — 
So have we all — of joy ; for our escape 
Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe 
Is common ; every day some sailor's wife, 
The master of some merchant, 1 and the merchant, 
Have just our theme of woe : but for the miracle — 

106 "Be of comfort" is old language for be comforted. 
1 It was usual to call a merchant-vessel a merchant; as we now say a mer- 
chant-man. 



76 THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

I mean our preservation — few in millions 
Can speak like us : then wisely, good sir, weigh 
Our sorrow with our comfort. 

Alon. Pr'ythee, peace. 

Sebas. He receives comfort like cold porridge. 

Anto. The visitor 2 will not give him o'er so. 
■ Sebas. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit ; by- 
and-by it will strike. 

Gonza. Sir, — 

Sebas. One : — tell. 3 

Gonza. — When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd, 
Comes to the entertainer — ■ 

Sebas. A dollar. 

Gonza. Dolour comes to him, indeed : you have spoken 
truer than you purposed. 

Sebas. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you 
should. 

Gonza. Therefore, my lord, — 

Anto. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue ! 

Alon. I pr'ythee, spare me. 

Gonza. Well, I have done : but yet — 

Sebas. He will be talking. 

Anto. Which, of he or Adrian, 4 for a good wager, first 
begins to crow? 

2 He calls Gonzalo a visitor in allusion to the office of one who visits the 
sick or the afflicted, to give counsel and consolation. The caustic scoffing 
humour of Sebastian and Antonio, in this scene, is wisely conceived. See 
the Introduction, page 29. 

3 Tell is count, or keep tally ; referring to " the watch of his wit," which 

he was said to be "winding up," and which now begins to strike. SeeA'ing 
Lear, page 115, note 10. 

4 This, it appears, is an old mode of speech, which is now entirely obso- 
lete. Shakespeare has it once again in A Midsummer-Night 's Dream, iii. 2 : 
" Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right, of thine or mine, is most in 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 77 

Sebas. The old cock. 

Anto. The cockerel. 

Sebas. Done ! The wager? 

Anto. A laughter. 

Sebas. A match ! 

Adri. Though this island seem to be desert, — ■ 

Sebas. Ha, ha, ha ! — So, you're paid. 5 

Adri. — uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible, — 

Sebas. Yet — 

Adri. — yet — 

Anto. He could not miss't. 

Adri. — it must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate 
temperance. 6 

Anto. Temperance was a delicate wench. 

Sebas. Ay, and a subtle ; as he most learnedly delivered. 

Adri. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. 

Sebas. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones. 

Anto. Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen. 

Gonza. Here is every thing advantageous to life. 

Anto. True ; save means to live. 

Sebas. Of that there's none, or little. 

Gonza. How lush 7 and lusty the grass looks ! how 
green ! 

Anto. The ground, indeed, is tawny. 

Helena." And Walker quotes an apposite passage from Sidney's Arcadia : 
" The question arising, who should be the first to fight against Phalantus, 
of the black or the ill-apparelled knight," &c. 

5 A laugh having been agreed upon as the wager, and Sebastian having 
lost, he now pays with a laugh. 

6 By temperance Adrian means temperature, and Antonio plays upon the 
word ; alluding, perhaps, to the Puritan custom of bestowing the names of 
the cardinal virtues upon their children. 

7 Lush is juicy, succulent, — luxuriant. 



78 THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

Sebas. With an eye of green in't. 8 

Anto. He misses not much. 

Sebas. No ; he doth but mistake the truth totally. 

Gonza. But the rarity of it is, — which is indeed almost 
beyond credit, — 

Sebas. As many vouch'd rarities are. 

Gcmza. — that our garments, being, as they were, drenched 
in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and gloss, 
being rather new-dyed than stain'd with salt water. 

Anto. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not 
say he lies ? 

Sebas. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report. 

Gonza. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when 
we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the King's 
fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis. 

Sebas. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in 
our return. 

Adri. Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon 
to 9 their Queen. 

Gonza. Not since widow Dido's time. 

Anto. Widow? a pox o' that! How came that widow 
in? Widow Dido ! 

Sebas. What if he had said widower ^Eneas too ? Good 
Lord, how you take it ! 

Adri. Widow Dido, said you? you make me study of 
that : she was of Carthage, not of Tunis. 

8 A tint or shade of green. So in Sandy's Travels : " Cloth of silver, 
tissued with an eye of green ; " and Bayle says : " Red with an eye of blue 
makes a purple." 

9 To was continually used in such cases where we should use for or as. 
So in the Marriage Office of the Church : " Wilt thou have this woman to 
thy wedded wife?" Also, in St. Mark, xii. 23: "The seven had her to 
wife." 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 79 

Gonza. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage. 

Adri. Carthage ! 

Gonza. I assure you, Carthage. 

Anto. His word is more than the miraculous harp. 10 

Sebas. He hath raised the wall and houses too. 

Anto. What impossible matter will he make easy next ? 

Sebas. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket, 
and give it his son for an apple. 

Anto. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth 
more islands. 

Alon. Ah ! 

Anto. Why, in good time. 

Gonza. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now 
as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your 
daughter, who is now Queen. 

Anto. And the rarest that e'er came there. 

Sebas. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido. 

Anto. O, widow Dido ! ay, widow Dido. 

Gonza. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I 
wore it ? I mean, in a sort. 

Anto. That sort was well fish'd for. 11 

Gonza. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage ? 

Alon. You cram these words into mine ears against 
The stomach of my sense. 12 Would I had never 

10 Amphion, King of Thebes, was a prodigious musician : god Mercury 
gave him a lyre, with which he charmed the stones into their places, and thus 
built the walls of the city : as Wordsworth puts it, " The gift to King Am- 
phion, that wall'd a city with its melody." Tunis is in fact supposed to be 
on or near the site of ancient Carthage. 

11 A punning allusion, probably, to one of the meanings of sort, which 
was lot or portion ; from the Latin sors. 

12 That is, " when the state of my feelings does not relish them, or has no 
appetite for them." Stomach for appetite occurs repeatedly. 



80 THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

Married my daughter there ! for, coming thence, 
My son is lost ; and, in my rate, 13 she too, 
Who is so far from Italy removed, 
I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir 
Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish 
Hath made his meal on thee ? 

Fran. Sir, he may live : 

I saw him beat the surges under him, 
And ride upon their backs ; he trod the water, 
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted 
The surge most swoln that met him : his bold head 
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd 
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke 
To th' shore, that o'er his H wave-worn basis bow'd, 
As 15 stooping to relieve him : I not doubt 
He came alive to land. 

AI011. No, no ; he's gone. 

Sebas. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, 
That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, 
But rather lose her to an African ; 
Where she at least is banish 'd from your eye, 
Who 16 hath cause to wet the grief on't. 

13 Rate for reckoning, account, or estimation. 

14 His for its, referring to shore. In the Poet's time its was not an ac- 
cepted word : it was then just creeping into use ; and he has it occasionally, 
especially in his later plays ; as it occurs once or twice in this play. It does 
not occur once in the Bible as printed in 1611. 

15 Here as is put for as if; a very frequent usage with the Poet, as also 
with other writers of the time. 

16 Who and which were used indifferently both of persons and things. 
Here ivho refers to eye. And the meaning probably is, " your eye, which 
hath cause to sprinkle or water your grief with tears." This would of course 
make the grief grow stronger. " The grief on't " is the grief arising from it or 
out of it; that is s from the loss or banishment of Claribel. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 8 1 

Alon. Pr'ythee, peace. 

Sebas. You were kneel'd to, and importuned otherwise, 
By all of us ; and the fair soul herself 
Weigh'd, between loathness and obedience, at 
Which end the beam should bow. 17 We've lost your son, 
I fear, for ever : Milan and Naples have 
More widows in them of this business' making 
Than we bring men to comfort them : the fault's 
Your own. 

Alon. ■ So is the dear'st o' the loss. 18 

Gonza. My lord Sebastian 

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, 
And time to speak it in : you rub the sore, 
When you should bring the plaster. 

Sebas. Very well. 

Anto. And most chirurgeonly. 19 

Gonza. It is foul weather in us all, good sir, 
When you are cloudy. 20 

Sebas. Foul weather ! 

Anto. Very foul. 

Gonza. Had I plantation 21 of this isle, my lord, — 

Anto. He'd sow't with nettle-seed. 

17 Hesitated, or stood in doubt, between reluctance and obedience, which 
way the balance should turn or incline. To weigh is to deliberate, and hence 
to pause, to be in suspense, or to suspend action. 

18 Dear was used of any thing that causes strong feeling, whether of 
pleasure or of pain ; as it hurts us to lose that which is dear to us. So that 
here the sense is, the worst or heaviest of the loss. 

- , 19 Chirurgeon is the old word, which has got transformed into surgeon. 

20 The meaning is, "your gloom makes us all gloomy." A cloud in the 
face is a common metaphor both for anger and for sorrow. 

21 In Shakespeare's time a plantation meant a colony, and was so used 
of the American colonies. {Here plantation is a " verbal noun," and means 
the colonizing, \ 



82 THE TEMPEST. ACT II, 

Sebas. Or docks, or mallows. 

Gonza. — And were the King on't, what would I do ? 

Sebas. 'Scape being drunk for want of wine. 

Gonza. V the commonwealth I would by contraries 
Execute all things : for no kind of traffic 
Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; 
Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, 
And use of service, none ; contract, succession, 
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, 22 vineyard, none ; 
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 
No occupation ; all men idle, all, 
And women too, but innocent and pure ; 
No sovereignty : - — 

Sebas. Yet he would be king on't. 

Anto. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the 
beginning. 

Gonza. — All things in common Nature should produce 
Without sweat or endeavour : treason, felony, 
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, 23 
Would I not have ; but Nature should bring forth, 
Of its own kind, all foison, 24 all abundance, 
To feed my innocent people. 

Sebas. No marrying 'mong his subjects ? 

Anto. None, man ; all idle, — trulls and knaves. 

22 Succession is the tenure of property by inheritance, as the son succeeds 
the father. — Bourn is boundary or limit. Properly it means a stream of 
water, river, rivulet, or brook ; these being the most natural boundaries of 
landed property. — Tilth is tillage : also used of land tilled, or prepared 
for sowing. So in Measure for Measure, iv. i : " Our corn's to reap, for yet 
our tilth's to sow." 

23 Engine was applied to any kind of machine : here it probably means 
furniture of war. 

24 Foison is an old word for plenty or abundance of provision, especially 
of the fruits of the soil. Often used so by the Poet. 



scene I. THE TEMPEST. 83 

Gonza. I would with such perfection govern, sir, 
T' excel the golden age. 25 

Sebas. God save his Majesty ! 

Anto. Long live Gonzalo ! 

Gonza. And, — do you mark me, sir ? — • 

AI011. Pr'ythee, no more : thou dost talk nothing to me. 

Gonza. I do well believe your Highness ; and did it to 
minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensi- 
ble 26 and nimble lungs, that they always use to laugh at 
nothing. 

Anto. 'Twas you we laugh'd at. 

Gonza. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to 
you : 27 so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still. 

Anto. What a blow was there given ! 

Sebas. An it had not fallen flat-long. 28 

Gonza. You are gentlemen of brave mettle ; 29 you would 
lift the Moon out of her sphere, if she would 30 continue in it 
five weeks without changing. 

25 "The golden age" is that fabulous period in "the dark backward of 
time " when men knew nothing of sin and sorrow, and were so wise and 
good as to have no need of laws and government. Milton, in his Ode 071 the 
Nativity, has " Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold." 

26 Sensible for sensitive or ticklish. So in Corlolanus, i. 3 : " I would your 
cambric were sensible as your finger, that you might leave pricking it for 
pity." See, also, Hamlet, page 109, note 44. 

27 Nothing in comparison with you. So the Poet often uses to. 

28 The idea is of a sword handled so awkwardly as to hit with the side, 
and not with the edge. 

29 Brave mettle is high, glorious, or magnificent spirit. The Poet often 
has mettle in that sense. — Sphere, in the next line, is orbit. 

30 Our present usage requires should. In Shakespeare's time, the auxil- 
iaries could, should, and would were often used indiscriminately, as were 
also shall and will. So a little further on : " Methinks I see it in thy face, 
what thou shouldst be " ; shouldst for wouldst. Again, later in this scene, 
"should not upbraid our course" ; should for would. Also, "who shall be 
of as little memory" ; shall for will. 



84 THE TEMPEST. 



ACT II. 



Enter Ariel, invisible, playing solemn music. 

Sebas. We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling. 31 

Anto. Nay, good my lord, be not angry. 
Gonza. No, I warrant you ; I will not adventure my dis- 
cretion 32 so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep ? for I am 
very heavy. 

Anto. Go sleep, and hear us not. 

\_All sleep but Alon.. Sebas., and Anto. 

Alon. What, all so soon asleep ! I wish mine eyes 
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts : I find 
They are inclined to do so. 

Sebas. Please you, sir, 

Do not omit the heavy offer of it : 33 
It seldom visits sorrow ; when it doth, 
It is a comforter. 

Anto. We two, my lord, 

Will guard your person while you take your rest, 
And watch your safety. 

Alon. Thank you. — Wondrous heavy. 

[Alonso sleeps. Exit Ariel. 

Sebas. What a strange drowsiness possesses them ! 

Anto. It is the quality o' the climate. 

Sebas. Why 

Doth it not, then, our eyelids sink ? I find not 

. - 31 Bat-fowling was a term used of catching birds in the night. Fielding, 

in Joseph Andrews, calls it bird-batting, and says " it is performed by holding 
a large clap-net before a lantern, and at the same time beating the bushes ; 
for the birds, when they are disturbed from their places of rest or roost, im- 
mediately make to the light, and so are enticed within the net." 

32 That is, " hazard my character for discretion, or put it in peril." 

33 " Do not slight or neglect the offer of sleep which it holds out," or 
" when it offers to make you sleepy." Heavy is here used proleptically, or 
anticipatively. See Macbeth, page 113, note 11. 



SCENE I. 



THE TEMPEST. 85 



Myself disposed to sleep. 

Anto. Nor I ; my spirits are nimble. 

They fell together all, as by consent ; 
They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might, 
Worthy Sebastian, O, what might ! 34 No more : 
And yet methinks I see it in thy face, 
What thou shouldst be : th' occasion speaks thee ; 35 and 
My strong imagination sees a crown 
Dropping upon thy head. 

Sebas. What, art thou waking ? 

Anto. Do you not hear me speak? 

Sebas. I do ; and sureiy 

It is a sleepy language, and thou speak'st 
Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say? 
This is a strange repose, to be asleep 
With eyes wide open ; standing, speaking, moving, 
And yet so fast asleep. 

Anto. Noble Sebastian, 

Thou lett'st thy fortune sleep, — die rather ; wink'st 
Whiles thou art waking. 36 

Sebas. Thou dost snore distinctly ; 

There's meaning in thy snores. 

Anto. I am more serious than my custom : you 
Must be so too, if heed me ; which to do 
Trebles thee o'er. 37 

34 « What might you be! " is probably the meaning. 

35 Reveals or proclaims thee. Such an opportunity kindles the devil in 
Sebastian, and makes his ambitious thoughts legible in his face. So in 
Macbeth, i. 5 : " Your face is as a book where men may read strange mat- 
ters." 

36 " Closest thine eyes as if asleep while thou art awake." While, whiles, 
and whilst were used indifferently. 

37 " The doing of which will make thee thrice what thou art now." 



86 THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

Sebas. Well, I am standing water. 38 

A?ito. I'll teach you how to flow. 

Sebas. Do so : to ebb 

Hereditary sloth instructs me. 

Anto. O, 

If you but knew how you the purpose cherish 
Whiles thus you mock it ! how, in stripping it, 
You more invest it ! 39 Ebbing men, indeed, 
Most often do so near the bottom run 
By their own fear or sloth. 

Sebas. Pr'ythee, say on : 

The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim 
A matter from thee ; and a birth indeed 
Which throes thee much to yield. 40 

Anto. Thus, sir : 

Although this lord of weak remembrance, this, 
Who shall be of as little memory 41 
When he is earth 'd, hath here almost persuaded — 
For he's a spirit of persuasion, only 
Professes to persuade — the King his son's alive, 
'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd 

38 Water standing between ebb and flow, and so ready to be moved in 
either direction. So in Twelfth Night, i. 5 : " 'Tis with him e'en standing 
water between boy and man." 

39 Sebastian shows that he both takes and welcomes Antonio's sugges- 
tion, by his making it a theme of jest ; and the more he thus denudes the 
hint of obscurity by playing with it, the more he clothes it with his own 
approval. — "Ebbing men " are men whose fortunes are ebbing away or de- 
clining. 

40 " In the yielding of which you struggle very hard, and suffer much 
pain." — Matter, here, is something of vast i?nport. 

41 Will be as little remembered, or as quickly forgotten, as he is apt to 
forget. Weak remembrance means feeble memory. Francisco is the lord 
referred to. — Shall for will, as noted a little before. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 87 

As he that sleeps here swims. 

Sebas. I have no hope 

That he's undrown'd. 

Anto. O, out of that no hope 

What great hope have you ! no hope that way is 
Another way so high a hope, that even 
Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, — 
But doubt discovery there. 42 Will you grant with me 
That Ferdinand is drown'd ? 

Sebas. He's gone. 

Anto. Then, tell me, 

Who's the next heir of Naples ? 

Sebas. Claribel. 

Anto. She that is Queen of Tunis ; she that dwells 
Ten leagues beyond man's life ; 43 she that from Naples 
Can have no note, 44 unless the Sun were post, — 
The Man-i'-the-moon's too slow, — till new-born chins 
Be rough and razorable. She 'twas for whom 45 we 
All were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again ; 46 

42 Cannot pierce so much beyond as may be measured by a wink of the 
eye ; wink meaning the same as jot or atom. Probably all are familiar with 
the word in that sense. — The last clause is obscure, or worse : probably, if 
the text be right, the force of cannot was meant to be continued over But 
doubt. See Critical Notes. 

43 Beyond a lifetime of travelling. Of course this passage is a piece of 
intentional hyperbole ; and Sebastian shows that he takes it so, by exclaim- 
ing, " What stuff is this ! " 

44 Note for knowledge or notice. See King Lear, page 128, note 3. 

45 For whom is here equivalent to because of whom, or on whose account. 
For is often used so. Antonio means, apparently, to imply that, inasmuch 
as Claribel has been the occasion of what has befallen them, they need not 
scruple to cut her off from the Neapolitan throne. And he goes on to inti- 
mate that, by the recent strange events, Sebastian and himself are marked 
out, as by destiny, for some mighty achievement or some peerless honour. 

46 The image is of being swallowed by the sea, and then cast up, or cast 



8& THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

And, by that destiny, to perform an act 
Whereof what's past is prologue ; what to come, 
In yours and my discharge. 

Sebas. What stuff is this ! How say you ? 

'Tis true, my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis ; 
So is she heir of Naples ; 'twixt which regions 
There is some space. 

Ant. A space whose every cubit 

Seems to cry out, How shalt thou, Claribel, 
Measure us back to Naples ? 47 Keep in Tunis, 
And let Sebastian wake ! Say, this were death 
That now hath seized them ; why, they were no worse 
Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples 
As well as he that sleeps ; lords that can prate 
As amply and unnecessarily 
As this Gonzalo : I myself could make 
A chough of as deep chat. 48 O, that you bore 
The mind that I do ! what a sleep were this 
For your advancement ! Do you understand me ? 

Sebas. Methinks I do. 

Anto. And how does your content 

Tender your own good fortune? 49 

Sebas. . I remember 

You did supplant your brother Prospero. 

Anto. True : 

ashore. — In the next line, " by that destiny " is by the same destiny through 
which they have so miraculously escaped drowning. 

47 " Measure the distance back from Naples to us ; " or "return to us." 

48 Could produce, breed, or train a parrot to talk as wisely. A chough is 
a bird of the jackdaw kind. 

49 Obscure, again. But the meaning seems to be, " How does your pres- 
ent contentment, that is, apathy or indifference, regard or look out for your 
own advantage or interest ? " To tenders, thing is to take care of it, or be 
careful for it. See Hamlet, page 73, note 27. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 89 

And look how well my garments sit upon me ; 
Much feater 50 than before : my brother's servants 
Were then my fellows ; now they are my men. 

Sebas. But, for your conscience — 

Anto. Ay, sir ; and where lies that ? if 'twere a kibe, 51 
'Twould put me to my slipper : but I feel not 
This deity in my bosom : twenty consciences, 
That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied 52 be they, 
And melt, ere they molest ! Here lies your brother, 
No better than the earth he lies upon, 
If he were that which now he's like ; whom I, 
With this obedient steel, three inches of it, 
Can lay to bed for ever ; whiles you, doing thus, 
To the perpetual wink for aye might put 
This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who 
Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest, 
They'll take suggestion 53 as a cat laps milk ; 
They'll tell 54 the clock to any business that 
We say befits the hour. 

Sebas. Thy case, dear friend, 

Shall be my precedent ; as thou gott'st Milan, 

50 Feater is more finely, or more becomingly. — Fellows, in the next line, 
is equals. The word is often used in that sense. 

51 The Poet has kibe several times for the well-known heel-sore, an 
ulcerated chilblain. 

52 Candied, here, is congealed, or crystallized. So in Timon of Athens, 
iv. 3 : " Will the cold brook, candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste ? " 

53 Suggest and its derivatives were often used in the sense of to tempt. 
Thus Shakespeare has such phrases as " tender youth is soon suggested',' 
and " what serpent hath suggested thee." The meaning of the text is," They'll 
fall in with any temptation to villainy"; they referring to the other lords 
present. 

54 Tell, again, for count. The meaning is, " They'll speak whatever words 
we choose to have them speak," or "put into their mouths." 



90 THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword : one stroke 
Shall free thee from the tribute which thou pay'st ; 
And I the King shall 55 love thee. 

Anto. Draw together ; 

And when I rear my hand, do you the like, 
To fall it on Gonzalo. 

Sebas. O, but one word. 

\_They converse apart. 

Music. Re-enter Ariel, invisible. 

Ari. My master through his art foresees the danger 
That you, his friend, are in ; and sends me forth — 
For else his project dies — to keep thee living. 

[Sings in Gonzalo's ear. 
While you here do snoring lie, 
Open-eyed conspiracy 
His time doth take. 
If of life you keep a care, 
Shake off slumber, and beware : 
Awake ! awake ! 
Anto. Then let us both be sudden. 
Gonza. [ Waking.~\ Now, good angels 

Preserve the King ! — [To Sebas. and Anto.] Why, how 

now ! — [To Alon.] Ho, awake ! — 
[To Sebas. and Anto.] Why are you drawn? wherefore 
this ghastly looking? 
Alon. [lVaking.~] What's the matter? 
Sebas. Whiles we stood here securing your repose, 
Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing 
Like bulls, or rather lions : did't not wake you ? 
It struck mine ear most terribly. 

55 Shall for will, again. See page 86, note 41. 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 9 1 

Alon, I heard nothing. 

Anto. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear, 
To make an earthquake ! sure, it was the roar 
Of a whole herd of lions. 

Aloii. Heard you this, Gonzalo? 

Gonza. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming, 
And that a strange one too, which did awake me : 
I shaked you, sir, and cried : as mine eyes open'd, 
I saw their weapons drawn : there was a noise, 
That's verity. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard, 
Or that we quit this place : let's draw our weapons. 

Alon. Lead off this ground ; and let's make further search 
For my poor son. 

Gonza. Heavens keep him from these beasts ! 

For he is, sure, i' the island. 

Alon. Lead away. 

\_Exit with the others, 

Ari. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done : — 
So, King, go safely on to seek thy son. \_Exit. 

Scene II. — Another part of the Island, 

Enter Caliban, with a burden of wood. A noise of Thunder 

heard. 

Cal. All the infections that the Sun sucks up 
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him 
By inch-meal l a, disease ! His spirits hear me, 
And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch, 
Fright me with urchin-shows, 2 pitch me i' the mire, 

1 Jnch-meal and. limb-meal were used just as we use piece-meal. 

2 Urchin-shows are /airy-shows ; as urchin was the name of a certain 
description of fairies. See page 66, note 8o. 



92 THE TEMPEST. act n. 

Nor lead me, like a fire-brand, 3 in the dark 
Out of my way, unless he bid 'em : but 
For every trifle are they set upon me ; 
Sometime 4 like apes, that mow 5 and chatter at me, 
And after bite me ; then like hedgehogs, which 
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount 
Their pricks 6 at my foot-fall ; sometime am I 
All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues 
Do hiss me into madness. Lo, now, lo ! 
Here comes a spirit of his ; and to torment me 
For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat ; 
Perchance he will not mind me. 

Enter Trinculo. 

Trin. Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any 
weather at all, and another storm brewing ; I hear it sing i' 
the wind : yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like 
a foul bombard 7 that would shed his liquor. If it should 
thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head : 
yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. — What 
have we here ? a man or a fish ? Dead or alive ? A fish : he 
smells like a fish ; a very ancient and fish-like smell ; a kind 
of not-of-the-newest poor-john. 8 A strange fish ! Were I in 
England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, 
not a holiday fool there but-would give a piece of silver : there 
would this monster make a man ; any strange beast there 

3 The ignis fatuus was thought to be the work of naughty spirits. 

4 Sometime and sometimes were used indiscriminately. 

5 To mow is to make mouths. So Nash's Pierce Penniless : " Nobody at 
home but an ape, that sat in the porch, and made mops and mows at him." 

6 Pricks is the ancient word for prickles. 

7 A bombard is a black jack of leather, to hold beer, &c. 

8 Poor-john is an old name for hake salted and dried. 



scene II. THE TEMPEST. 93 

makes a man : 9 when they will not give a doit to relieve a 
lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. 
Legg'd like a man ! and his fins like arms ! Warm, o' my 
troth ! I do now let loose my opinion ; hold it no longer : 
this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a 
thunderbolt. [Thunder.'] Alas, the storm is come again ! 
my best way is to creep pn'der his gaberdine ; 10 there is no 
other shelter, hereabout :/ misery acquaints a man with strange 
bed-fellows. ) I will her§ shroud till the dregs of the storm 
be past. / [ Creeps under Caliban's garment. 

Enter Stephano, singing ; a bottle in his hand. 

Steph. / shall no more to sea, to sea, 

Here shall I die ashore ; — 

This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral : well, 
here's my comfort. [Drinks. 

[Sings.] The master, the swabber, u the boatswain, and I, 
The gunner, and his mate, 
Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery, 
But none of us cared for Kate ; 
For she had a tongue with a tang, l<2 
Would cry to a sailor, Go hang ! 
She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch : 
Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang ! 

9 Sets a man up, or makes his fortune. The phrase was often used thus. 
So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, iv. 2: " If our sport had gone forward, 
we had all been made men." 

10 A gaberdine was a coarse outer garment. " A shepherd's pelt, frock, 
or gaberdine, such a coarse long jacket as our porters wear over the rest of 
their garments," says Cotgrave. "A kind of ^ough cassock or frock like an 
Irish mantle," says Philips. 

11 A swabber is one whose special business it is to sweep, mop, or swab 
the deck of a ship. 

12 Tang was used of what has a pungent or biting taste or flavour. 



94 THE TEMPEST. act n. 

This is a scurvy tune too : but here's my comfort. \_Drinks. 

Cal. Do not torment me : — O ! 

Steph. What's the matter ? Have we devils here ? Do you 
put tricks upon's with savages and men of Inde, ha? 13 I 
have not 'scaped drowning, to be afeard now of your four 
legs ; for it hath been said, As proper a man as ever went on 
four legs cannot make him give ground ; and it shall be said 
so again, while Stephano breathes at's nostrils. 

Cal. The spirit torments me : — O ! 

Steph. This is some monster of the isle with four legs, 
who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the Devil should 
he learn our language ? I will give him some relief, if it be 
but for that. If I can recover him, and keep him tame, and 
get to Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor that 
ever trod on neat's-leather. 14 

Cal. Do not torment me, pr'ythee : 
I'll bring my wood home faster. 

Steph. He's in his fit now, and does not talk after the 
wisest. He shall taste of my bottle : if he have never drunk 
wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If I can re- 
cover him, and keep him tame, I will not take too much for 
him : 15 he shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly. 

Cal. Thou dost me yet but little hurt ; 
Thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling : 
Now Prosper works upon thee-. 

Steph. Come on your ways ; open your mouth ; here is 

13 Alluding, probably, to the impostures practised by showmen, who 
often exhibited sham wonders pretended to be brought from America, hide 
for hidia, East or West. 

14 Neat is an old epithet for all cattle of the bovine genus. So that neat's- , 
leather is cowhide or calfskin. So in The Winter's Tale, i. 2 : " And yet the 
steer, the heifer, and the calf are all called neat" 

15 A piece of vulgar irony, meaning, " I'll take as much as I can get." 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 95 

that which will give language to you, cat : 16 open your 
mouth ; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that- 
soundly: \Gives him drink.'] you cannot tell who's your 
friend ; open your chops again. [ Gives him more drink. 

Trin. I should know that voice : it should be — but he is 
drown'd ; and these are devils : — O, defend me ! 

Steph. Four legs, and two voices, — a most delicate mon- 
ster? His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend • 
his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract. 
If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his 
ague: \_Gives him drink.'] — Come, — Amen! 17 I will 
pour some in thy other mouth. 

Trin. Stephano ! 

Steph. Doth thy other mouth call me ? — Mercy, mercy ! 
This is a devil, and no monster : I will leave him ; I have 
no long spoon. 

Trin. Stephano ! — If thou be'st Stephano, touch me, and 
speak to me ; for I am Trinculo, — be not afeard, — thy 
good friend Trinculo. 

Steph. If thou be'st Trinculo, come forth : I'll pull thee 
by the lesser legs : if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they. 
\_Pulls Trinculo out.] Thou art very Trinculo 18 indeed! 
How earnest thou to be the siege of this moon-calf? 19 

16 Shakespeare gives his characters appropriate language : " They belch 
forth proverbs in their drink," " Good liquor will make a cat speak" and 
" He who eats with the devil had need of a long spoon" 

17 Stephano is frightened, and put to his religion ; and Amen! is the best 
he can do towards praying. 

18 That is, the real or veritable Trinculo. The Poet often has very so. 

. J 9 Moon-calf was an imaginary monster, supposed to be generated or 

misshapen through lunar influence. 1 So in Holland's Pliny : " A false con- 
ception called mola, that is a moone-calfe ; that is to say, a lump of flesh 
without shape, without life." — Siege is an old word for seat. So in Measure 
for Measure, iv. 2 : " Upon the very siege of justice." 



96 THE TEMPEST. ACT II, 

Trin. I took him to be kill'd with a thunder-stroke. But 
art thou not drown'd, Stephano ? I hope, now, thou art not 
drown'd? Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the 
dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And 
art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans 
'scaped ! 

Steph. Pr'ythee, do not turn me about ; my stomach is 
not constant. 

Cal. \_Aside.~] These be fine things, an if 20 they be not 
sprites. 
That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor : 
I will kneel to him. 

Steph. How didst thou 'scape? How earnest thou hither? 
swear, by this bottle, how thou earnest hither. I escaped 
upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard, by 
this bottle ! which I made of the bark of a tree with mine 
own hands, since I was cast ashore. 

Cat. I'll swear, upon that bottle, to be thy 
True subject ; for the liquor is not earthly. 

Steph. Here ; swear, man, how thou escapedst. 

Trin. Swam ashore, man, like a duck : I can swim like a 
duck, I'll be sworn. 

Steph. Here, kiss the book. [Gives him drink„~\ Though 
thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose. 

Trin. O Stephano, hast any more of this ? 

Steph. The whole butt, man : my cellar is in a rock by 
the sea-side, where my wine is hid. — How now, moon-calf ! 
how does thine ague? 

Cal. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven? 

20 In old English, if, an, and an if are exactly equivalent expressions; 
the latter being merely a reduplication ; though it sometimes has the force 
of even if. See Hainlet, page 89, note 34. 



SCENE ii. THE TEMPEST. 97 

Steph. Out o' the Moon, I do assure thee : I was the 
Man-i'-the-moon when time was. 

Cal. I've seen thee in her, and I do adore thee : 
My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog, and thy 1 bush. 21 

Steph. Come, swear to that ; kiss the book : I will furnish 
it anon with new contents : swear. [ Gives Caliban drink. 

Trin. By this good light, this is a very shallow monster ! 
— I afeard of him ! — a very weak monster ! — The Man-i'- 
the-moon / — a most poor credulous monster ! — Well drawn, 
monster, in good sooth. 22 

Cal. I'll show thee every fertile inch o' the island ; 
And I will kiss thy foot : I pr'ythee, be my god. 

Trin. By this light, a most perfidious and 'drunken mon- 
ster ! when his god's asleep, he'll rob his bottle. 23 

Cal. I'll kiss thy foot ; I'll swear myself thy subject. 

Steph. Come on then ; down, and swear. 

Trin. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed 
monster. A most scurvy monster ! I could find in my heart 
to beat him, — 

Steph. Come, kiss. [Gives Caliban drink. 

Trin. — but that the poor monster's in drink: an abom- 
inable monster ! 

Cal. I'll show thee the best springs ; I'll pluck thee berries ; 
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. 
A plague upon the tyrant that I serve ! 
1*11 bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, 
Thou wondrous man. 

21 So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, v. 1 : " This man, with lantern, 
dog, and bush of thorn, presenteth moonshine." 

22 Well drawn probably means that Caliban has taken a large draught 
of the liquor; as we should say, a bumper. — " In good sooth," sooth is the 
same as truth. So soothsayer originally meant a truth-speaker. 

23 That is, will steal the liquor out of his bottle. 



98 THE TEMPEST. ACT II. 

Trin. A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of 
a poor drunkard ! 

Cat. I pr'ythee, let me bring thee where crabs grow ; 
And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts ; 24 
Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how 
To snare the nimble marmozet ; I'll bring thee 
To clustering filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee 
Young staniels 25 from the rock. Wilt thou go with me? 

Steph. I pr'ythee now, lead the way without any more 
talking. — Trinculo, the King and all our company else being 
drown'd, we will inherit here. Here, bear my bottle : fellow 
Trinculo, we'll fill him by-and-by again. 

Cat. \_Sings drimkenly.~\ Farewell, master; farewell, 
farewell ! 

Trin. A howling monster ; a drunken monster ! 

CaL No more dams I'll make for fish ; 

Nor fetch in firing at requiring ; 
Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish : 
'Ban, 'Ban, Ca — Caliban 
Has a new master ; get a new man. 

Freedom, hey-day, hey-day, freedom ! freedom, hey-day, 
freedom ! 
Steph. O brave monster ! lead the way. [Exeunt. 

24 Pig-nuts are probably much the same as what we call ground-nuts, — 
a small bulbous root growing wild. 

25 The staniel is a species of hawk, also called kestril ; a " beautiful 
species," says Montagu. See Critical Notes. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 99 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — Before Prospero's Cell, 

Enter Ferdinand, bearing a log. 

Ferd. There be some sports are painful, and their labour 
Delight in them sets off: 1 some kinds of baseness 
Are nobly undergone ; and most poor matters 
Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be 
As heavy to me as 'tis odious, but 
The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, 
And makes my labours pleasures : O, she is 
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed, 
And he's composed of harshness. I must remove 
Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up, 
Upon a sore injunction : my sweet mistress 
Weeps when she. sees me work; and says such baseness 
Had never like executor. I forget : 
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labour ; 
Most busy when I do it least. 2 

1 The delight we take in those painful sports offsets or compensates the 
exertion they put us to. A similar thought occurs in Macbeth : " The labour 
we delight in physics pain." 

2 That is, "/ being most busy when I am least occupied." The sense of 
the two lines appears to be, "The. sweet thoughts attending my labour, and 
springing from what Miranda is thereby moved to say, make even the 
labour itself refreshing to me; so that I am happiest when I work hardest, 
and most weary when working least." And Ferdinand " forgets " his task, 
or loses all sense of its irksomeness, in the pleasantness of his thoughts. 
The passage is not so very dark to those who have had their labour sweetened 
to them by thoughts of the dear ones for whom they were working. " And 
Jacob served seven years for Rachel ; and they seemed unto him but a few 
days, for the love he had to her." See Critical Notes. 



IOO THE TEMPEST. ACT III. 

Enter Miranda ; and Prospero behind. 

Mira. Alas, now, pray you, 

Work not so hard : I would the lightning had 
Burnt up those logs that you're enjoin'd to pile ! 
Pray, set it down, and rest you : when this burns, 
'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father 
Is hard at study ; pray now, rest yourself : 
He's safe for these three hours. 

Ferd. O most dear mistress, 

The Sun will set before I shall discharge 
What I must strive to do. 

Mira. If you'll sit down, 

I'll bear your logs the while : pray, give me that ; 
I'll carry't to the pile. 

Ferd. No, precious creature ; 

I'd rather crack my sinews, break my back, 
Than you should such dishonour undergo, 
While I sit lazy by. 

Mira. It would become me 

As well as it does you : and I should do it 
With much more ease ; for my good will is to it, 
And yours it is against. 

Pros. \_Aside.~\ Poor worm, thou art infected ! 

This visitation shows it. 

Mira. You look wearily. 

Ferd. No, noble mistress ; 'tis fresh morning with me 
When you are by at night. I do beseech you, — 
Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers, — 
What is your name ? 

Mira. Miranda : — O my father, 

I've broke your hest to say so ! 

Ferd. Admired Miranda ! 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. IOI 

Indeed the top of admiration ; worth 

What's dearest to the world ! Full many a lady 

I've eyed with best regard ; and many a time 

The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage 

Brought my too diligent ear : for several virtues 

Have I liked several women ; never any 

With so full soul, but some defect in her 

Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed., 

And put it to the foil : 3 but you, O you, 

So perfect and so peerless, are created 

Of every creature's best ! 

Mir a. I do not know 

One of my sex ; no woman's face remember, 
Save, from my glass, mine own ; nor have I seen 
More that I may call men, than you, good friend, 
And my dear father : how features are abroad, 
I'm skilless of; but, by my modesty, — 
The jewel in my dower, — I would not wish 
Any companion in the world but you ; 
Nor can imagination form a shape, 
Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle 
Something too wildly, and my father's precepts 
I therein do forget. 

Ferd. I am, in my condition, 

A prince, Miranda ; I do think, a king, — 
I would, not so ! — and would no more endure 
This wooden slavery than to suffer 
The flesh-fly blow 4 my mouth. Hear my soul speak : 

3 " Put it to the foil " means, apparently, compel it to fight, or to stand on 
its defe?ice ; foil being often used as a general term for weapons of the sword 
kind. Here, as usual, owed is owned. 

4 The fiesh-fiy is the fly that blows dead flesh, that is, lays maggot-eggs 
upon it, and so hastens its putrefaction. 



102 THE TEMPEST. ACT III. 

The very instant that I saw you, did 
My heart fly to your service ; there resides, 
To make me slave to it ; and for your sake 
Am I this patient log-man. 

Mira. Do you love me? 

Ferd. O Heaven, O Earth, bear witness to this sound, 
And crown what I profess with kind event, 
If I speak true ! if hollowly, invert 
What best is boded me to mischief ! I, 
Beyond all limit of what else 5 i' the world, 
Do love, prize, honour you. 

Mira. I am a fool 

To weep at what I'm glad of. 

Pros. \_Aside.~] Fair encounter 

Of two most rare affections ! Heavens rain grace 
On that which breeds between them ! 

Ferd. Wherefore weep you? 

Mira. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer 
What I desire to give ; and much less take 
What I shall die to want. 6 But this is trifling ; 
And all the more it seeks to hide itself, 
The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning ! 
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! 
I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 
If not, I'll die your maid : to be your fellow 7 
You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant, 

5 " What else" for whatsoever else. The Poet has many instances of 
relative pronouns thus used indefinitely. So in King Lear, v. 3 : " What in 
the world he is that names me traitor, villain-like he lies." And in Othello, 
iii. 3 : " Who steals my purse steals trash." 

6 Die from wanting, or by wanting. Another gerundial infinitive. We 
have a like expression in Aluch Ado : " You kill me to deny it." 

7 Fellow for companion or equal, as before. See page 89, note 50. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 103 

Whether you will or no. 

Ferd. My mistress, dearest, 

And I thus humble ever. 

Mira. My husband, then? 

Ferd. Ay, with a heart as willing 
As bondage e'er of freedom : 8 here's my hand. 

Mira. And mine, with my heart in't : and now farewell 
Till half an hour hence. 

Ferd. A thousand thousand ! 9 

[Exeunt Ferdinand and Miranda, 

Pros. So glad of this as they, I cannot be, 
Who am surprised withal ; 10 but my rejoicing 
At nothing can be more. I'll to my book ; 
For yet, ere supper-time, must I perform 
Much business appertaining. \_Exit. 

8 The abstract for the concrete. " I accept you for my wife as willingly 
as ever a bondman accepted of freedom." 

9 Meaning a thousand thousand farewells ; this word being taken liter- 
ally, like the Latin bene vale. — Coleridge comments on this sweet scene as 
follows : " The whole courting-scene, in the beginning of the third Act, is a 
masterpiece ; and the first dawn of disobedience in the mind of Miranda to 
the command of her father is very finely drawn, so as to seem the working 
of the Scriptural command, Thou shall leave father and mother, &c. O, with 
what exquisite purity this scene is conceived and executed ! Shakespeare 
may sometimes be gross, but I boldly say that he is always moral and mod- 
est. Alas ! in this our day, decency of manners is preserved at the expense 
of morality of heart, and delicacies for vice are allowed, whilst grossness 
against it is hypocritically, or at least morbidly, condemned." 

10 Prospero may well be surprised at what has shot up between his 
daughter and the Prince ; for, though the result is just what he has planned 
and hoped for, it has come on far better than he has dared to expect. See 
Critical Notes. 



104 THE TEMPEST. ACT in. 

Scene II. — Another part of the Island. 
Enter Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, with a bottle. 

Steph. Tell not me : when the butt is out, we will drink 
water ; not a drop before : therefore bear up, and board 
'em. 1 — Servant-monster, drink to me. 

Trin. Servant-monster ! the folly of this island ! They 
say there's but five upon this isle : we are three of them ; if 
th' other two be brain'd like us, the State totters. 

Steph. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee : thy eyes 
are almost set 2 in thy head. [Caliban drinks. 

Trin. Where should they be set else ? he were a brave 
monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. 

Steph. My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in sack : 
for my part, the sea cannot drown me ; I swam, ere I could 
recover the shore, flve-and-thirty leagues, off and on, by this 
light. — Thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my stan- 
dard. 3 

Trin. Your lieutenant, if you list ; he's no standard. 4 

Steph. We'll not run, Monsieur Monster. 

Trin. Nor go neither : but you'll lie like dogs, and yet 
say nothing neither. 

Steph. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou be'st a 
good moon-calf. 

1 " To bear up, put the helm up, and keep a vessel off her course." So 
says Admiral Smith. 

2 Set here means, I suppose, fixed in a vacant stare. So in Twelfth Night, 
v. i : " He's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone ; his eyes were set at eight i' the 
morning." 

3 Standard, like ensign, is put for the bearer of the standard. 

4 Trinculo is punning upon standard, and probably means that Caliban 
is too drunk to stand. 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. IO5 

Cal. How does thy Honour? Let me lick thy shoe. 
I'll not serve him, he is not valiant. 

Trin. Thou liest, most ignorant monster : I am in case 
to justle a constable. 5 Why, thou debosh'd 6 fish, thou, 
was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack 
as I to-day ? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a 
fish and half a monster ? 

Cal. Lo, how he mocks me ! wilt thou let him, my lord ? 

Trin. Lord, quoth he. That a monster should be such 
a natural ! 7 

Cal. Lo, lo, again ! bite him to death, I pr'ythee. 

Steph. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head : if 
you prove a mutineer, — the next tree. The poor monster's 
my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity. 

Cal. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased 
To hearken once again the suit I made thee ? 

Steph. Marry, will I : kneel, and repeat it ; I will stand, 
and so shall Trinculo. 

Enter Ariel, invisible. 

Cal. As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant ; a 
sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island. 

Ari. Thou liest. 

Cal. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou : 

I would my valiant master would destroy thee ! 
I do not lie. 

5 The jester is breaking jests upon himself; his meaning being, " One so 
deep in drink as I am is valiant enough to quarrel with an officer of the 
law." 

6 Debosh'd is an old form of debauched. Cotgrave explains, " Deboshed, 
lewd, incontinent, ungracious, dissolute, naught." 

7 Natural was used for simpleton or fool. There is also a quibble in- 
tended between monster and natural, a monster being unnatural. 



106 THE TEMPEST. ACT III. 

Steph. Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale, by 
this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth. 

Trin. Why, I said nothing. 

Steph. Mum, then, and no more. — \To Cal.] Proceed. 

Cal. I say, by sorcery he got this isle ; 
From me he got it. If thy Greatness will 
Revenge it on him, — for, I know, thou darest, 
But this thing dare not, — 

Steph. That's most certain. 

Cal. — Thou shalt be lord of it, and I will serve thee. 

Steph. How now shall this be compass'd? Canst thou 
bring me to the party ? 

Cal. Yea, yea, my lord ; I'll yield him thee asleep, 
Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head. 

Art. Thou liest ; thou canst not. 

Cal. What a pied ninny's this ! 8 — Thou scurvy patch ! — 
I do beseech thy Greatness, give him blows, 
And take his bottle from him : when that's gone, 
He shall drink nought but brine ; for I'll not show him 
Where the quick freshes 9 are. 

Steph. Trinculo, run into no further danger : interrupt the 
monster one word further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my 
mercy out of doors, and make a stock-fish 10 of thee. 

Trin. Why, what did I ? I did nothing. I'll go further 
off. 

Steph. Didst thou not say he lied? 

Ari. Thou liest. 

8 Pled is dappled or diversely-coloured. Trinculo is " an allowed Fool " 
or jester, and wears a motley dress. Patch refers to the same circumstance. 
_ 9 Quick freshes are living springs of fresh water. 

10 A stock-fish appears to have been a thing for practising upon with the 
fist, or with a cudgel. Ben Jonson has it in Every Man in his Humour, iii. 
2 : " 'Slight, peace ! thou wilt be beaten like a stock-fish" 



scene II. THE TEMPEST. 107 

Steph. Do I so ? take thou that. [Strikes him.~\ As you 
like this, give me the lie another time. 

Trin. I did not give thee the lie. Out o' your wits and 
hearing too? A pox o' your bottle ! this can sack and 
drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the Devil 
take your fingers ! 

Cat. Ha, ha, ha ! 

Steph. Now, forward with your tale. — Pry'thee stand fur- 
ther off. 

Cat. Beat him enough : after a little time, 
I'll beat him too. 

Steph. Stand further. — Come, proceed. 

Cat. Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him 
I' the afternoon to sleep : then thou mayst brain him, 11 
Having first seized his books j or with a log 
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, 
Or cut his ,weazand 12 with thy knife. Remember, 
First to possess his books ; for without them 
He's but a sot, 13 as I am, nor hath not 
One spirit to command : they all do hate him 
As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. 
He has brave utensils, 14 — for so he calls them, — 
Which, when he has a house, he'll deck't withal : 

11 That is, knock out his brains. So, in / Henry the Fourth, ii. 3, Hotspur 
says, " Zwounds ! an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his 
lady's fan." 

12 Weazand is windpipe or throat. So Spenser has weazand-pipe. 

13 Sot, from the French, was frequently used for fool ; as our word be- 
sotted sometimes is. The Poet has it repeatedly so. 

14 Here utensils has the accent on the first and third syllables. Sucfe, it 
seems, is the English pronunciation of the word. So Wordsworth has it ; 
and so Milton, in Paradise Regained, iii. 336 : — 

Mules after these, camels, and dromedaries, 
And wagons, fraught with utensils of war. 



108 THE TEMPEST. ACT III. 

And that most deeply to consider is 
The beauty of his daughter ; he himself 
Calls her a nonpareil : I ne'er saw woman, 
But only Sycorax my dam and she ; 
But she as far surpasseth Sycorax 
As great'st does least. 

Steph. Is it so brave a lass? 

Cal. Ay, lord. 

Steph. Monster, I will kill this man : his daughter and I 
will be king and queen, — save our Graces ! — and Trinculo 
and thyself shall be viceroys. — Dost thou like the plot, 
Trinculo ? 

Trin. Excellent. 

Steph. Give me thy hand : I am sorry I beat thee ; but, 
while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head. 

Cal. Within this half-hour will he be asleep : 
Wilt thou destroy him then ? 

Steph. Ay, on mine honour. 

Art. This will I tell my master. 

Cal. Thou makest me merry ; I am full of pleasure : 
Let us be jocund : will you troll the catch 
You taught me but while-ere ? 15 

Steph. At thy request, monster, I will do reason, 16 any 
reason. — Come on, Trunculo, let us sing. \Sings. 

Flout 'em and scout 1 etn i and scout 'em and flout 'em ; 
Thought is free. 

15 While-ere is awhile since. Milton has another form of it in the open- 
ing of Paradise Regained : " I who erewhile the happy garden sung," &c. — 
A catch is a song in parts, where all the singers sing the same notes, but in 
such order as to make harmony, and where each in turn catches the others ; 
sometimes called a round. — To troll is to roll ox round out glibly or volubly. 

16 That is, will do what is reasonable. See Hamlet, page 58, note 13. 



SCENE II. THE TEMPEST. 109 

Cal. That's not the tune. 

[Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe. 

Steph. What is this same ? 

Trin. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the picture 
of Nobody. 17 

Steph. If thou be'st a man, show thyself in thy likeness : 
if thou be'st a devil, — take't as thou list. 18 

Trin. O, forgive me my sins ! 

Steph. He that dies pays all debts : I defy thee. — Mercy 
upon us ! 

Cal. Art thou afeard ? 

Steph. No, monster, not I. 

Cal. Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, 
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. 
Sometime 19 a thousand twangling instruments 
Will hum about mine ears ; and sometime voices, 
That, if I then had waked after long sleep, 
Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, 
The clouds methought would open, and show riches 
Ready to drop upon me ; that, when I waked, 
I cried to dream asrain. -~Z 

Steph. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I 
shall have my music for nothing. 

Cal. When Prospero is destroy'd. 

Steph. That shall be by-and-by : I remember the story. 

Cal. The sound is going away ; let's follow it, 
And after do our work. 

17 The picture of Nobody was a common sign, and consisted of a head 
upon two legs, with arms. There was also a wood-cut prefixed to an old 
play of Nobody and Somebody, which represented this personage. 

18 Here Stephano probably shakes his fist at the invisible musician, or 
the supposed devil, by way of defiance or bravado. 

19 Sometime, again, for sometimes. See page 92, note 4. 



IIO THE TEMPEST. ACT III. 

Steph. Lead, monster ; we'll follow. — I would I could 
see this taborer ! 20 he lays it on. — Wilt come ? 

Trin. I'll follow, Stephano. [Exeunt 

Scene III. — Another part of the Island. 

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, 
Francisco, and Others. 

Gonza. By'r lakin, 1 I can go no further, sir; 
My old bones ache : here's a maze trod, indeed, 
Through forth-rights and meanders ! 2 by your patience, 
I needs must rest me. 

Alon. Old lord, I cannot blame thee, 

Who am myself attach'd with weariness, 
To th' dulling of my spirits : sit down, and rest. 
Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it 
No longer for my flatterer : he is drown'd 
Whom thus we stray to find ; and the sea mocks 
Our frustrate 3 search on land. Well, let him go. 

20 " You shall heare in the ayre the sound of tabers and other instruments, 
to put the travellers in feare, by evill spirites that makes these soundes, and 
also do call diverse of the travellers by their names." Travels of Marcus 
Paulus, 1579. To some of these circumstances Milton also alludes in 

Comus : — 

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire ; 
And aery tongues that syllable men's names 
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. 

*. By'r lakin is a contraction of by our lady kin, which, again, is a diminu- 
tive of our Lady. A disguised or softened form of swearing by the Blessed 
Virgin. 

2 Forth-rights are straight lines ; meanders, crooked ones. 

3 Frustrate for frustrated, meaning baffled; in accordance with the usage 
remarked in note 43, page 56. Shakespeare has many preterite forms made 
in the same way, such as confiscate, consecrate, articulate, and suffocate. The 
usage still holds in a few words, as in situate. 



scene ill. THE TEMPEST. Ill 

Anto. \_Aside to Sebas.] I am right glad that he's so out 
of hope. 
Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose 
That you resolved t' effect. 

Sebas. \_Aside to Anto.] The next advantage 
Will we take throughly. 4 

Anto. [Aside to Sebas.] Let it be to-night • 
For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they 
Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance 
As when they're fresh. 

Sebas. \_Aside to Anto.] I say, to-night : no more. 

\Solemn and strange music. 

A/on. What harmony is this ? My good friends, hark ! 

Gonza. Marvellous sweet music ! 

Enter Prospero above, invisible. Enter, below, several 
strange Shapes, bringing in a Banquet: they dance about 
it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the 
King, &>c, to eat, they depart. 
Alon. Give us kind keepers, Heavens ! — What were 

these ? 
Sebas. A living drollery. 5 Now I will believe 

That there are unicorns ; that in Arabia 

There is one tree, the phoenix' throne ; 6 one phoenix 

At this hour reigning there. 

4 Through and thorough, throughly and thoroughly, are but different forms 
Of the same word, as to be thorough in a thing is \.o go through it. The old 
writers use the two forms indifferently. So in St. Matthew, iii. 12 : " He will 
throughly purge his floor." 

5 Shows, called Drolleries, were in Shakespeare's time performed by 
puppets only. "A living drollery" is therefore a drollery performed not by 
puppets but by living personages ; a live puppet-show. 

6 This imaginary bird is often referred to by the old poets ; by Shake- 
speare repeatedly. The ancient belief is expressed by Lyly in his Euphues, 



112 THE TEMPEST. ACT III. 

Anto. I'll believe both ; 

And what does else want credit, come to me, 
And I'll be sworn 'tis true : travellers ne'er did lie, 
Though fools at home condemn 'em. 

Gonza. If in Naples 

I should report this now, would they believe me ? 
If I should say I saw such islanders, — 
For, certes, 7 these are people of the island, — 
Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note, 
Their manners are more gentle-kind than of 
Our human generation you shall find 
Many, nay, almost any. 

Pros. \_Aside.~] Honest lord, 

Thou hast said well ; for some of you there present 
Are worse than devils. 

Alon. I cannot too much muse 8 

Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing — 
Although they want the use of tongue — a kind 
Of excellent dumb discourse. 

Pros. \_Aside.~\ Praise in departing. 9 

Fran. They vanish'd strangely. 

Sebas. No matter, since 

They've left their viands behind ; for we have stomachs. — 
Will't please you taste of what is here ? 



thus : " For as there is but one Phoenix in the world, so there is but one tree 
in Arabia, wherein she buildeth." Also in Holland's Pliny : " I myself have 
heard strange things of this kind of tree ; namely, in regard of the bird Phoe- 
nix ; for it was assured unto me, that the said bird died with that tree, and 
revived of itself as the tree sprung again." 

7 Certes for certainly ; used several times by Shakespeare. 

8 To muse is to wonder; to wonder at, in this instance. 

9 " Praise in departing " is said to have been a proverbial phrase mean- 
ing, praise not your entertainment too soon ; wait till the end. 



SCENE III. THE TEMPEST. 113 

Alon. Not I. 

Gonza. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were 
boys, 
Who would believe that there were mountaineers 
Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em 
Wallets of flesh? 10 or that there were such men 
Whose heads stood in their breasts? 11 which now we find, 
Each putter-out of one for five 12 will bring us 
Good warrant of. 

Alon. I will stand to, and feed, 

Although my last : no matter, since I feel 
The best is past. — Brother, my lord the Duke, 
Stand to, and do as we. 

Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, like a harpy ; claps 
his wings upon the table ; and, by a quaint device, the 
banquet vanishes. 

Art. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny — 
That hath to 13 instrument this lower world 

10 In the Alpine and other mountainous regions are many well-known 
cases of goitre that answer to this description. Probably, in the Poet's time, 
some such had been seen by travellers, but not understood. 

11 These were probably the same that Othello speaks of: " The Anthro- 
pophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." Also in 
Holland's Pliny : " The Blemmyi, by report, have no heads, but mouth and 
eyes both in their breast." 

12 A sort of inverted life-insurance was practised by travellers in Shake- 
speare's time. Before going abroad they put out a sum of money, for which 
they were to receive two, three, four, or even five times the amount upon 
their return ; the rate being according to the supposed danger of the expe- 
dition. Of course the sum put out fell to the depositary, in case the putte7- 
out did not return. So in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, ii. 1 : 
" I am determined to put forth some five thousand pound, to be paid me 
five for one, upon the return of myself and wife, and my dog, from the Turk's 
Court in Constantinople." 

13 To, again, with the force of for or as. See page 78, note 9. 



114 THE TEMPEST. ACT III, 

And what is in't — the never-surfeited sea 
Hath caused to belch up ; yea, and on this island 
Where man doth not inhabit ; you 'mongst men 
Being most unfit to live. I've made you mad ; 
And even with such like valour men hang and drown 
Their proper selves. 

[Seeing Alon., Sebas., &c, draw their swords. 
You fools ! I and my fellows 
Are ministers of Fate : the elements, 
Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well 
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs 
Kill the still-closing waters, 14 as diminish 
One dowle 15 that's in my plume : my fellow-ministers 
Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, 
Your swords are now too massy for your strengths, 
And will not be uplifted. But remember, — 
For that's my business to you, — that you three 
From Milan did supplant good Prospero ; 
Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit 16 it, 
Him and his innocent child : for which foul deed 
The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have 
Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, 
Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, 
They have bereft ; and do pronounce, by me, 
Lingering perdition — worse than any death 
Can be at once — shall step by step attend 
You and your ways ; whose wraths to guard you from, — 
Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls 

14 Waters that continually close over cuts made in thern, and leave no 
trace thereof. See page 61, note 62. 

15 Dowle and down are said to have been equivalent. Here dowle seems 
rather to mean a single particle or thread of downe. 

16 Requit for requited, like others noted before. See page 56, note 43. 



SCENE III. THE TEMPEST. 115 

Upon your heads, — is nothing, but heart-sorrow 
And a clear life ensuing. 17 

He vanishes in thunder ; then, to soft music, enter the Shapes 
again, and dance with mocks and mowes, and carry out 
the table. 

Pros. \_Aside.~\ Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou 
Perform 'd, my Ariel ; a grace it had, devouring : 
Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated 
In what thou hadst to say : so, with good life, 
And observation strange, 18 my meaner ministers 
Their several kinds have done. 19 My high charms work, 
And these mine enemies are all knit up 
In their distractions : they now are in my power ; 
And in these fits I leave them, while I visit 
Young Ferdinand, — who they suppose is drown'd, — 
And his and my loved darling. [Exit from above. 

Gonza. V the name of something holy, sir, why stand you 
In this strange stare ? 

Alon. O, it is monstrous, monstrous ! 

Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it ; 
The winds did sing it to me ; and the thunder, 
That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced 
The name of Prosper : it did bass my trespass. 
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded ; and 

17 " From whose wrath nothing can shield or deliver you but heart-felt 
repentance and an amended life, or doing works meet for repentance." 
Whose refers to powers, in the sixth line before. 

18 The sense appears to be, " with all the truth of life itself, and with rare 
observance of the proprieties of action." 

19 To do one's kind is to act out one's nature, or act according to one's 
nature ; though in this case the nature is an assumed one, that is, a part. 
So, in Antony and Cleopatra, the rustic, speaking of the asp, says, " the worm 
will do his kind." Also in the phrase, " The cat will after kind." 



Il6 THE TEMPEST. ACT IV. 

I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, 

And with him there lie mudded. [Exit. 

Sebas. But one fiend at a time, 

I'll fight their legions o'er. 

Anto. I'll be thy second. 

[Exeunt Sebastian and Antonio. 

Gonza. All three of them are desperate : their great guilt, 
Like poison given to work a long time after, 20 
Now 'gins to bite the spirits. — I do beseech you, 
That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly, 
And hinder them from what this ecstasy 21 
May now provoke them to. 

Adri. Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Before Prospero's Cell 

Enter Prospero, Ferdinand, and Miranda. 

Pros. If I have too austerely punish'd you, 
Your compensation 1 makes amends ; for I 
Have given you here a thread of mine own life, 2 
Or that for which I live ; who once again 
I tender to thy hand : all thy vexations 

20 The natives of Africa have been supposed to possess the secret how to 
temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they 
were administered. 

21 Shakespeare uses ecstasy for any alienation of mind, a fit, or madness. 

1 Your compensation is the compensation you receive. Shakespeare has 
many instances of like construction. 

2 "Thread of mine own life " probably means about the same as " my 
very heart-strings" ; strings the breaking of which spills the life. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 117 

Were but my trials of thy love, and thou 

Hast strangely stood the test : here, afore Heaven, 

I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand, 

Do not smile at me that I boast her off, 

For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise 

And make it halt behind her. 

Ferd. I do believe it 

Against an oracle. 

Pros. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition 
Worthily purchased, take my daughter : but, 
If thou dost break her virgin-knot 3 before 
All sanctimonious 4 ceremonies may 
With full and holy rite be minister'd, 
No sweet aspersion 5 shall the Heavens let fall 
To make this contract grow ; but barren hate, 
Sour-eyed disdain, and discord, shall bestrew 
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly, 6 
That you shall hate it both : therefore take heed, 
As Hymen's lamps shall light you. 

Ferd. As I hope 

For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, 
With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest even, 
The most opp6rtune place, the strong'st suggestion 7 
Our worser genius 8 can, shall never melt 

3 Alluding, no doubt, to the zone or sacred girdle which the old Romans 
used as the symbol and safeguard of maiden honour. 

4 Sanctimonioiis ; here, is sacred or religious. The marriage ritual was 
supposed to have something of consecrating virtue in it. 

5 Aspersion in its primitive sense of sprinkling, as with genial rain or 
dew. — Here, again, as also just after, shall for will. 

6 Not with wholesome flowers, such as the bridal bed was wont to be 
decked with, but with loathsome weeds. 

"' Suggestion, again, for temptation. See page 89, note 53. 

8 Genius, spirit, and angel were used indifferently for what we should 



Il8 THE TEMPEST. ACT IV. 

Mine honour into lust ; to take away 

The edge of that day's celebration, 

When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd, 

Or Night kept chain'd below. 

Pros. Fairly spoke. 

Sit, then, and talk with her ; she is thine own. — 
What, Ariel ! ray industrious servant, Ariel ! 

Enter Ariel. 

Art. What would my potent master? here I am. 
Pros. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service 
Did worthily perform ; and I must use you 
In such another trick. Go bring the rabble, 
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place : 
Incite them to quick motion ; for I must 
Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple 
Some vanity 9 of mine art : it is my promise, 
And they expect it from me. 

Ari. Presently? 

Pros. Ay, with a twink. 
Ari. Before you can say Come and Go, 
And breathe twice, and cry So, so, 
Each one, tripping on his toe, 
Will be here with mop and mow. 10 
Do you love me, master ? — no ? 

call a man's worser or better self. The Edinburgh Review, July, 1869, has 
the following : " In mediaeval theology, the rational soul is an angel, the low- 
est in the hierarchy for being clothed for a time in the perishing vesture of 
the body. But it is not necessarily an angel of light. It may be a good or 
evil genius, a guardian angel or a fallen spirit, a demon of light or dark- 
ness." See, also, Julius Ccesar, page 76, note 16. 

9 Perhaps meaning some magical show or illusion. Display? 

10 Mop and mow were very often used thus together. To mow is to make 
mouths, to grimace. Wedgwood, in his English Etymology, says that mop 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 119 

Pros. Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach 
Till thou dost hear me call. 

Ari. Well, I conceive. [Exit 

Pros. Look thou be true ; do not give dalliance 
Too much the rein : the strongest oaths are straw 
To th' fire i' the blood. 

Ferd. I warrant you, sir : 

The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart 
Abates the ardour of my liver. 11 

Pros. Well. — 

Now come, my Ariel ! bring a corollary, 12 
Rather than want a spirit : appear, and pertly ! 
No tongue ; all eyes ; be silent. [Soft music. 

Enter Iris. 

Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas 
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas ; 
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, 
And flat meads thatch'd withjrtovej^ 13 them to keep ; 
Thy banks with peoned and twilled brims, 14 

has exactly the same derivation as mock, and means to gibber. Thus the 
ape both mops and mows ; that is, he gibbers or chatters, and makes faces. 

11 The liver was supposed to be the special seat of certain passions, and 
so was often put for the passions themselves. 

12 Corollary here means a surplus number; more than enough. — Pertly, 
in the next line, is nimbly, alertly. 

13 Stover is fodder and provision of all sorts for cattle. Steevens says 
that in some counties it " signifies hay made of coarse rank grass, such as 
even cows will not eat while it is green." 

14 A writer in The Edinburgh Review for October, 1872, argues, and, I 
think, proves, that peoned here refers to the marsh-marigold, which grew 
abundantly on the fiat marshy banks of such still-running streams as the 
Warwickshire Avon, and which was provincially called peony or piony. He 
thus compares it with the garden peony : " The flowers, though differing in 
colour, have a remarkable similarity in general growth and shape, especially 



120 THE TEMPEST. ACT in. 

Which spongy April at thy hest betrims, 

To make cold nymphs chaste crowns ; and thy brown groves, 

Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, 

Being lass-lorn ; thy pole-clipt vineyard ; 15 

And thy sea-rnarge, steril, and rocky-hard, 

Where thou thyself dost air ; — the Queen o' the Sky, 

Whose watery arch and messenger am I, 

Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign Grace, 

Here on this grass-plot, in this very place, 

To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain : 

Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain. 

Enter Ceres. 

Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er 
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter ; 
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers. 
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers ; 
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown 
My bosky acres 16 and my unshrubb'd down, 

in the early stage, when the fully-formed bud is ripe for blowing." — In ex- 
planation of twilled the same writer has the following : " Twills is given by 
Halliwell as an older provincial word for reeds; and it was applied, like 
quills, to the serried rustling sedges of river reaches and marshy levels, it 
was indeed while watching the masses of waving sedge cutting the water-line 
of the Avon, not far from Stratford church, that we first felt the peculiar 
force and significance of the epithet." — In the next line, April has the epi- 
thet spongy, probably because at that season the earth or the air sponges up 
so much water. So, in Cymbeline, iv. 2, we have " the spongy south," refer- 
ring to the south or south-west wind, which, in England, is apt to be densely 
charged with moisture; that is, foggy; elsewhere called "the foggy south." 

15 Lass-lorn is forsaken by his lass, the sweet-heart that has dismissed 
him. — Pole-dipt probably means poles embraced or clasped by the vines. 
Clip was often used for embrace. So in Coriolamis, i. 6 : " Let me clip ye in 
arms as sound as when I woo'd." — Vineyard is here a trisyllable. 

16 "Bosky acres" are woody acres, fields intersected by luxuriant hedge- 
rows and copses. So in Milton's Comus : — 



SCENE r. THE TEMPEST. . 121 

Rich scarf to my proud Earth ; — why hath thy Queen 
Summon' d me hither, to this short-grass'd green? 

Iris. A contract of true love to celebrate ; 
And some donation freely to estate 
On the bless'd lovers. 

Cer. Tell me, heavenly Bow, 

If Venus or her son, as thou dost know, 
Do now attend the Queen ? Since they did plot 
The means that dusky Dis my daughter got, 17 
Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company 
I have forsworn. 

Iris. Of her society 

Be not afraid : I met her deity 
Cutting the clouds towards Paphos, 18 and her son 
Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done 
Some wanton charm upon this man and maid, 
Whose vows are, that no bed-right shall be paid 
Till Hymen's torch be lighted : but in vain ; 
Mars's hot minion is return'd again ; 19 
Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows, 
Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows, 
And be a boy right out. 

I know each lane, and every alley green, 
Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, 
And every bosky bourn from side to side. 

17 The means whereby Pluto caught and carried off Proserpina. Proser- 
pina was the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres : Dis, King of dusky Hades, fell 
so deep in love with her, that he must needs seize her, vi et arm is, and spirit 
her away to Hades, to be his Queen. 

18 A city in Cyprus, where Venus had a favourite country-seat. 

19 Has gone back to Paphos. Minion is darling ox favourite, and refers 
to Venus. — In what follows the meaning is, that Cupid is so chagrined and 
mortified at being thus baffled, that he is determined to give up his busi- 
ness, and act the love-god no more, but be a mere boy, or a boy outright 



122 THE TEMPEST. ACT IV. 

Cer. High'st Queen of state, 20 

Great Juno comes ; I know her by her gait. 21 

Enter Juno. 

Juno. How does my bounteous sister ? Go with me 
To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be, 
And honour'd in their issue. 

Song. 

Juno. Honour, riches, marriage -blessing, 
Long continuance, and increasing, 
Hourly Joys be still upon you I 
Juno sings her blessings on you. 

Cer. Earth's increase, aiidfoison plenty ', 22 
Barns and garners never empty ; 
Vines with clustering bunches growing; 
Plants with goodly burden bowing ; 
Spring come to you at the farthest 
In the very end of harvest J ' 23 
Scarcity and want shall shun you ; 
Ceres'* blessing so is on you. 

20 " High'st Queen of state " is the same as Queen of highest state, or 
Queen above all other queens. State for thro?ie, or chair of state. So the 
word was often used. — The Poet has many similar inversions. 

21 Juno was distinguished by her walk, as the gods and goddesses gener- 
ally were. So in Pericles, v. i : " In pace another Juno." 

22 " Foison plenty " is, strictly speaking, redundant or tautological, as both 
words mean the same. But plenty is used as an adjective, — plentiful or 
overflowing. See page 82, note 24. 

23 " May your new Spring come, at the latest, as soon as the harvest of 
the old one is over ! " This explanation is sustained, as Staunton points 
out, by Amos, ix. 13 : " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the 
ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that 
soweth the seed." Also, in The Faerie Queen, iii. 6, 42 : — 

There is continuall Spring, and harvest there 
Continuall, both meeting in one time. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 1 23 

Ferd. This is a most majestic vision, and 
Harmonious charmingly. 24 May I be bold 
To think these spirits ? 

Pros. Spirits, which by mine art 

I have from their confines calPd to enact 
My present fancies. 

Ferd. Let me live here ever ; 

So rare a wonder'd 25 father and a wife 
Make this place Paradise. [Juno and Ceres whisper, and 

send Iris o?i employment. 

Pros. Sweet, now, silence ! 

Juno and Ceres whisper seriously ; 
There's something else to do : hush, and be mute, 
Or else our spell is marr'd. 26 

Iris. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the winding brooks, 
With your sedge crowns and ever-harmless looks, 
Leave your crisp channels, 27 and on this green land 

24 That is, charmingly harmonious. See note 20, above. — "So bold as 
to think." See page 54, note 28. 

25 " So rare-wonder'd a father " is the prose order of the words. The 
Poet has several such inversions for metre's sake. So in King John, iv. 1 : 
" For putting on so new a fashion'd robe." So new-fashion'd a robe. The 
meaning in the text is, so rarely-wonderful a father ; and the force of " so rare 
a wonder'd" extends over wife. Shakespeare has many instances of the 
ending -ed used in the same way ; as in Macbeth, iii. 4 : " You have broke 
the good meeting with most admired disorder." Ad?nired for admirable, 
and in the sense of wonderful. 

26 It was supposed that any noise or disturbance would upset or discon- 
cert " the might of magic spells." 

2 ? Crisp is curled, from the curl made by a breeze on the surface of the 
water. The transference of an epithet to an associated object, as of crisp 
from the water to the channel in this instance, is one of Shakespeare's fa- 
vourite traits of style. So in Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5, when the lovers see 
tokens of the dawn that is to sever them, Romeo says," what envious streaks 
do lace the severing clouds in yonder east." 



1 24 THE TEMPEST. ACT IV. 

Answer our summons ; Juno does command : 
Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate 
A contract of true love ; be not too late. — 

Enter certat7i Nymphs. 

You sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary, 
Come hither from the furrow, and be merry : 
Make holiday ; your rye-straw hats put on, 
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one 
In country footing. 

Enter certain Reapers, properly habited : they join with the 
Nymphs in a graceful dance ; towards the end whereof 
Prospero starts suddenly, and speaks ; after which, to 
a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish. 

Pros. [_Aside.~\ I had forgot that foul conspiracy 
Of the beast Caliban and his confederates 
Against my life : the minute of their plot 
Is almost come. — \To the Spirits.] Well done; avoid; 28 
no more ! 

Ferd. This is most strange : your father's in some passion 
That works him strongly. 

Mira. Never till this day 

Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd. 

Pros. You do, my son, look in a movedsort, 29 
As if you were dismay'd : be cheerful, sir. 
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, 
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 
Are melted into air, into thin air : 
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 

28 Vacate or make void the place ; that is to say, be gone. 
- — 29 Here, as often, sort is manner ox way.'. So in Coriolanus, i. 3 : "I pray 
you, daughter, express yourself in a more comfortable sort." 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 1 25 

The cloud- capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 

Yea, all which it inherit, 30 shall dissolve, 

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 31 

Leave not a rack 32 behind. We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on,^ and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep, 33 Sir, I am vex'd ; 

Bear with my weakness ; my old brain is troubled : 

Be not disturb'd with my infirmity : 

If you be pleased, retire into my cell, 

And there repose : a turn -or two I'll walk, 

To still my beating mind. 

Ferd 1 

' > We wish you peace. 

Mira. i J * 

Pros. \To Ariel.] Come with a thought! — I thank 
ye. 34 [Exeunt Ferd. and Mira.] — Ariel, come ! 

Re-enter Ariel. 

Art. Thy thoughts I cleave to : what's thy pleasure ? 
Pros. Spirit, 

We must prepare to meet with 35 Caliban. 

30 All who possess it. Such is often the meaning of inherit. So in the 
divine beatitude, "Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth." 

31 Faded, from the Latin vado, is the same as vanished. 

32 Rack was used of the highest, and therefore lightest or thinnest clouds. 
So in Bacon's Silva Silvarum : " The winds in the upper region (which 
move the clouds above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below) 
pass without noise." See, also, Hamlet, page 118, note 77. — The word rack 
is from reek, that is, vapour or smoke. See Critical Notes. 

33 On for of. Still used so, especially in colloquial speech. — Rounded is 
fitiished, rounded off. The sleep here meant is the sleep of death ; as in 
Hamlet's soliloquy : " To die, to sleep ; no more." 

34 " I thank ye" is addressed to Ferdinand and Miranda, in return for 
their " We wish you peace." 

35 To meet with was anciently the same as to counteract or oppose. So in 



126 THE TEMPEST. 



ACT IV. 



Ari. Ay, my commander : when I presented Ceres, 
I thought t' have told thee of it ; but I fear'd 
Lest I might anger thee. 

Pros. Well, say again, where didst thou leave these varlets ? 

Ari. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking ; 
So full of valour, that they smote the air 
For breathing in their faces ; beat the ground 
For kissing of their feet ; yet always bending 
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor ; 
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, 
Advanced 36 their eyelids, lifted up their noses 
As they smelt music : so I charm'd their ears, 
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through 
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, 
Which enter'd their frail shins : at last I left them 
I' the filthy-mantled pool 37 beyond your cell, 
There dancing up to th' chins, that the foul lake 
O'erstunk their feet. 38 

Pros. This was well done, my bird. 

Thy shape invisible retain thou still : 
The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither, 
For stale 39 to catch these thieves. 

Herbert's Country Parson : " He knows the temper and pulse of every one 
in his house, and accordingly either meets with their vices, or advanceth 
their virtues." 

36 Advanced is raised, as already explained. See page 70, note 93. — In 
the next line, " As they smelt," as if they smelt. 

37 The pool mantled with filth. Mantle for the scum that forms on the 
surface of stagnant water. So in The Merchant, i. 1 : " There are a sort of 
men whose visages do cream and ma7itle like a standing pond." 

38 That for so that or insomuch that. — The meaning of this unsavoury 
passage is, that " the foul lake " was so stirred up by their dancing as to give 
out a worse odour than the men's feet did before they got into it. 

39 Stale, in the art of fowling, signified a bait or lure to decoy birds. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 1 2 7 

Aru I go, I go. [Exit 

Pros. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature 

Nurture can never stick ; 40 on whom my pains, 

Humanely taken, all are lost, quite lost ; 

And as with age his body uglier grows, 

So his mind cankers. 41 I will plague them all, 

Even to roaring. — 

Re-enter Ariel loaden with glistering apparel, &*c. 
Come, hang them on this line. 42 

Prospero and Ariel remain, invisible. Enter Caliban, 
Stephano, and Trinculo, all wet. 

Cal Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not 
Hear a foot fall : we now are near his cell. 

40 Nurture for education, training, or culture. 

41 As before observed, page 71, note 96, canker was used of an eating, 
malignant sore, like cancer, which is but another form of the same word ; 
and also oirust. I am not quite certain which of these senses it bears here ; 
probably the first. Shakespeare has the word repeatedly in both senses ; as 
in Romeo and Juliet, i. 1, where the first canker 'd means rusted, while the 
second has the sense of ca?icer: — 

To wield old partisans, in hands as old, 

Canker' d with peace, to part your canker 'd hate. 

42 Some question has been made as to what line means here. The word 
is commonly taken as meaning a clothes-line ; but I rather agree with the 
late Rev. Joseph Hunter, and with Mr. A. E. Brae, that it means a line-tree, 
which may well be supposed to be growing in the lawn before Prospero's 
cell, — the same that Stephano addresses a little after as " Mistress Line." 
For Prospero is still in the same place where he has just been making a 
display of his art; and I can hardly think he has a clothes-line stretched 
across it. It has indeed been objected that line, meaning the line-tree, 
would not be used thus, without the adjunct tree or grove ; but Mr. Brae 
disposes of this objection fairly, by quoting the following from Holinshed : 
" We are not without the plane, the ugh, the sorfe, the chestnut, the line, the 
black cherrie, and such like." 



128 THE TEMPEST. act iv. 

Steph. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless 
fairy, has done little better than play'd the Jack with us. 43 

Trin. Monster, I do smell all horse-stale ; at which my 
nose is in great indignation. 

Steph. So is mine. — Do you hear, monster? If I should 
take a displeasure against you, look you, — 

Trin. Thou wert but a lost monster. 

Cat. Nay, good my lord, 44 give me thy favour still. 
Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to 
Shall hoodwink this mischance : 45 therefore speak softly ; 
All's hush'd as midnight yet. 

Trin. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool, — 

Steph. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, 
monster, but an infinite loss. 

Trin. That's more to me than my wetting : yet this is 
your harmless fairy, monster. 

Steph. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er ears for 
my labour. 

Cat. Pr'ythee, my King, be quiet. See'st thou here ? 
This is the mouth o' the cell : no noise, and enter. 
Do that good mischief which may make this island 
Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, 
For aye thy foot-licker. 

Steph. Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody 
thoughts. 

43 To play the Jack is to play the Knave ; or it may be to play the Jack- 
o'-lantern, by leading them astray. 

44 We should say " my good lord." Similar inverted phrases occur con- 
tinually in old plays; such as " dread my lord," "gracious my lord," " dear 
my mother," " sweet my sister," " gentle my brother," &c. 

45 To hoodwink a thing is, apparently, to make one overlook it ox forget it, 
to blind him to it, or put it out of his sight. So hoodman-blind is an old 
term for what we call blind-man's-buff. 



scene I. THE TEMPEST. 129 

Trin. O King Stephano S O peer! 46 worthy Ste- 
phano ! look what a wardrobe here is for thee ! 

Cal. Let it alone, thou fool ; it is but trash. 

Trin. O, ho, monster ! we know what belongs to a frip- 
pery. 47 — O King Stephano ! 

Stepli. Put off that gown, Trinculo ; by this hand, I'll 
have that gown. 

Trin. Thy Grace shall have it. 

Cal. The dropsy drown this fool ! — what do you mean, 
To dote thus on such luggage ? Let's along, 
And do the murder first : if he awake, 
From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches ; 
Make us strange stuff. 

Steph. Be you quiet, monster. — Mistress line, is not this 
my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line : now, jerkin, 
you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin. 48 

Trin. Do, do : we steal by line and level, 49 an't like your 
Grace. 

46 A humorous allusion to the old ballad entitled " Take thy old Cloak 
about thee," a part of which is sung by I ago in Othello, ii. 3. I add one 

stanza of it : — 

King Stephen was a worthy peer, 
His breeches cost him but a crown; 
He held them sixpence all too dear, 
Therefore he call'd the tailor lown. 

^J£ Frippery was the name of a shop where old clothes were sold. 

48 King Stephano puns rather swiftly here. The name of the tree, as 
explained in note 42, suggests to him the equinoctial line, under which cer- 
tain regions were much noted for their aptness to generate diseases that 
commonly made the sufferers bald. Jerkin was the name of a man's upper 
garment. Mr. Brae thinks there may be another quibble intended between 
hair and air, as clothes are hung out to be aired, and the jerkin was likely 
to lose the benefit of such airing ; but I should rather take hair as referring 
to the nap of the jerkin, which was likely to be worn off in Stephano's using ; 
so as to make the jerkin a bald jerkin in the nearer sense of having lost its hair. 

49 Do, do, is said, apparently, in commendation of Stephano's wit as dis- 



130 THE TEMPEST. ACT IV. 

Steph. I thank thee for that jest ; here's a garment for't : 
wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country. 
Steal by line and level is an excellent pass of pate ; 5G there's 
another garment for't. 

Trin. Monster, come, put some lime 51 upon your fingers, 
and away with the rest. 

Cal. I will have none on't : we shall lose our time, 
And all be turn'd to barnacles, 52 or to apes 
With foreheads villainous low. 53 

Steph. Monster, lay-to your fingers : help to bear this away, 

played in his address to the jerkin. — " Steal by line and level " is a further 
punning on the same word ; the plumb-line and the level being instruments 
used by architects and builders. So that to steal by line and level was to 
show wit in stealing, or to steal artistically. 

so Pass of pate is a spurt or sally of wit; pass being, in the language of 
fencing, a thrust. 

61 Lime, or bird-lime, was a sticky substance used for catching birds. 
So in 2 Henry the Sixth, i. 3 : " Myself have limed a bush for her, and 
placed a quire of such enticing birds, that she will light to listen to their 
lays." See, also, Hamlet, page 154, note 8. 

52 Caliban's barnacle is the clakis or tree-goose, as it was called, which 
was thought to be produced from the shell-fish, lepas antifera, also called 
barnacle. Gerard's Herbal has the following account of the matter : " There 
are in the north parts of Scotland certain trees whereon do grow shell-fishes, 
which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnakles, in 
the north of England brant-geese, and in Lancashire tree-geese" Perhaps 
the old notion of the barnacle-goose being produced by the barnacle-fish 
grew from the identity of name. As Caliban prides himself on his intellec- 
tuality, he naturally has a horror of being turned into any thing so stupid 
as a goose. 

53 A low forehead was held a deformity. On the other hand, a forehead 
high and broad was deemed a handsome feature in man or woman. The 
Poet has several allusions to this old idea. So in The Two Gentlemen , iv. 4: 
" Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high." And in Spenser's de- 
scription of Belphcebe, Faerie Queene, ii. 3, 24 : — 

Her ivorie forehead, full of bountie brave, 
Like a broad table did itselfe dispred. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 131 

where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my 
kingdom : go to, 54 carry this. 

Trin. And this. 

Steph. Ay, and this. 

A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers Spirits in shape of 
hounds, and hunt them about ; Prospero and Ariel set- 
ting them 011. 

Pros. Hey, Mountain, hey ! 

Ari. Silver ! there it goes, Silver ! 

Pros. Fury, Fury ! there, Tyrant, there ! hark ! hark ! — 
[Cal., Steph., and Trin. are driven out. 
Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints 
With dry convulsions ; 55 shorten up their sinews 
With aged cramps ; 56 and more pinch-spotted make them 
Than pard or cat-o'-mountain. 57 

Ari. Hark, they roar ! 

Pros. Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour 
Lie at my mercy all mine enemies : 
Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou 
Shalt have the air at freedom : for a little 
Follow, and do me service. [Exeunt. 

54 Go to is a phrase occurring very often, and of varying import, some- 
times of impatience, sometimes of reproof, sometimes of encouragement. 
Hush up, come on, be off, are among its meanings. 

55 In certain fevers, the mucilage sometimes gets dried out of the joints, 
especially the knee-joints, so as to cause a creaking or grating sound when 
the patient walks. Of course the effect is very painful. 

56 Aged seems to be used here with the sense of the intensive old, as 
before explained. See page 68, note 86. 

57 Pard was in common use for leopard, as also for panther. — Cat-o'- 
mountain is probably the wild-cat. So in Minsheu's Spanish Dictionary : 
" Gato montes : A cat of mountaine, a wilde cat." This animal, however, 
can hardly be called spotted; it is rather striped. Perhaps the term .was 
not confined to one species of animal. 



I3 2 THE TEMPEST. ACT V. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Before the Cell of Prospero. 
Enter Prospero in his magic robes, and Ariel. 

Pros. Now does my project gather to a head : 
My charms crack not ; my spirits obey ; and Time 
Goes upright with his carriage. 1 How's the day? 

Ari. On the sixth hour ; at which time, my lord, 
You said our work should cease. 

Pros. I did say so, 

When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit, 
How fares the King and's followers ? 

Ari. Confined together 

In the same fashion as you gave in charge ; 
Just as you left them ; all are prisoners, sir, 
In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell; 2 
They cannot budge till your release. 3 The King, 
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted ; 
And the remainder mourning over them, 
Brimful of sorrow and dismay ; but chiefly 
He that you term'd The good old lord, Gonzalo : 
His tears run down his beard, like winter-drops 
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em, 

1 Time does not break down or bend under its load, or what it carries ; 
that is, " we have time enough for what we have undertaken to do." 

2 " Which defends your cell against the weather, or the storm." 

3 " Till you release them," of course. The objective genitive, as it is 
called, where present usage admits only of the subjective genitive. The 
Poet has many such constructions. See page n6, note i. 



SCENES. THE TEMPEST. 1 33 

That, if you now beheld them, your affections 
Would become tender. 

Pros. Dost thou think so, spirit ? 

Art. Mine would, sir, were I human. 

Pros. And mine shall. 

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling 
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, 
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply 
Passion as they, 4 be kindlier moved than thou art? 
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick, 
Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury 
Do I take part : the rarer action is 
In virtue than in vengeance : they being penitent, 
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel : 
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, 
And they shall be themselves. 

Art I'll fetch them, sir. [Exit 

Pros. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves ; 5 
And ye that on the sands with printless foot 
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him 
When he comes back ; you demi-puppets that 
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets 6 make, 

4 All is here used adverbially, in the sense of quite ; and passion is the 
object of relish, and has the sense of suffering. The sense of the passage is 
sometimes defeated by setting a comma after sharply. 

6 This speech is in some measure borrowed from Medea's, in Ovid ; the 
expressions are, many of them, in the old translation by Golding. But the 
exquisite fairy imagery is Shakespeare's own. 

6 These ringlets were circles of bright-green grass, supposed to be pro- 
duced by the footsteps of fairies dancing in a ring. The origin of them is 
still, I believe, a mystery. Alluded to in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, ii. i. 
— Mushrooms were also thought to be the work of fairies ; probably from 
their growing in rings, and springing up with such magical quickness. 



134 THE TEMPEST. ^CT v. 

Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you whose pastime 

Is to make midnight mushrooms ; that rejoice 

To hear the solemn curfew ; 7 by whose aid — 

Weak masters though ye be 8 — I have be-dimm'd 

The noon-tide Sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, 

And 'twixt the green sea and the azure vault 

Set roaring war : to the dread-rattling thunder 

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak 

With his own bolt : the strong-based promontory 

Have I made shake, and by the spurs 9 pluck'd up 

The pine and cedar : graves at my command 

Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth 

By my so potent art. But this rough magic 

I here abjure ; and, when I have required 

Some heavenly music, — which even now I do, — 

To work mine end upon their senses that 

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, 

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, 

And deeper than did ever plummet sound 

I'll drown my book. \_Solemn music. 

Re-enter Ariel : after him, Alonso, with a f?'a?itic gesture, 
attended by Gonzalo ; Sebastian and Antonio in like 
manner, attejtded by Adrian and Francisco : they all 
enter the circle which Prospero had made, and there 
stand charmed ; which Prospero observing, speaks. 

7 They rejoice, because " the curfew tolls the knell of parting day," and 
so signals the time for the fairies to begin their nocturnal frolics. 

8 Weak, if left to themselves, because they waste their force in sports and 
in frivolous or discordant aims ; but powerful when guided by wisdom, and 
trained to worthy ends. This passage has often seemed to me a strange 
prognostic of what human intelligence has since done in taming and mar- 
shalling the great forces of Nature into the service of man. 

9 The spurs are the largest and longest roots of trees. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 1 35 

A solemn air, as the best comforter 

To an unsettled fancy, cure the brains, 

Now useless, boil'd 10 within the skull ! — There stand, 

For you are spell-stopp'd. — 

Holy l 1 Gonzalo, honourable man, 

Mine eyes, even sociable to 12 the show of thine, 

Fall fellowly drops. — The charm dissolves apace ; 

And as the morning steals upon the night, 

Melting the darkness, so their rising senses 13 

Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle 

Their clearer reason. — O thou good Gonzalo, 

My true preserver, and a loyal sir 

To him thou follow'st ! I will pay thy graces 

Home 14 both in word and deed. — Most cruelly 

10 Boil'd for boiling ; the passive form with the neuter sense : for the verb 
to boil is used as active, passive, or neuter, indifferently. We have boil'd 
just so again in The Whiter' s Tale, iii. 3: "Would any but these boil'd 
brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?" — Love, mad- 
ness, and melancholy are imaged by Shakespeare under the figure of boiled 
brains, or boiling brains, or seething brains. So in A Midsummer-Night 's 
Dream, v. 1 : " Lovers and madmen have such seething brains," &c. Also in 
Twelfth Night, ii. 5 : " If I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to 
death with melancholy." Probably the expression grew from the heat or 
fever that was understood or supposed to agitate the brain in such cases. 

11 In Shakespeare's time, holy, besides the religious sense of godly or 
sanctified, was also used in the moral sense of righteous or just. And why 
not? 

12 Sociable to is the same as sympathetic with. — Fall, in the next line, is 
evidently a transitive verb, equivalent to let fall. The usage was common. 
So in ii. 1, of this play : " To fall it on Gonzalo." 

13 Senses was very often used thus of the mental faculties ; as we still say 
of one who does not see things as they are, that he is out of his senses. The 
meaning of the passage may be given something thus : " As morning dispels 
the darkness, so their returning reason begins to dispel the blinding mists 
or fumes that are gathered about it." 

14 Home was much used as a strong intensive ; meaning thoroughly, or to 
the utmost. See Hamlet, page 152, note 2 ; and Macbeth, page 60, note 26. 



136 THE TEMPEST. act v. 

Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter : 

Thy brother was a furtherer in the act ; — 

Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian. — Flesh and blood, 

You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, 

Expell'd remorse and nature ; 15 who, with Sebastian, — 

Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong, — 

Would here have kill'd your King ; I do forgive thee, 

Unnatural though thou art. — Their understanding 

Begins to swell ; and the approaching tide 

Will shortly fill the reasonable shore, 16 

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them 

That yet looks on me, or would know me. — Ariel, 

Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell : — \Exit Ariel. 

I will disease me, 17 and myself present 

As I was sometime Milan : — quickly, spirit ; 

Thou shalt ere long be free. 

Ariel re-enters, singing, and helps to attire Prospero. 

Ari. Where the bee sucks, there suck I : 

In a cowslip's bell I lie, — 

There I couch : when owls do cry, 

On the bat's back I do fly 

After Summer, merrily. 18 
Merrily, merrily shall I live now 
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 

15 Here, as commonly in Shakespeare, remorse is pity or tenderness of 
heart. Nature is put for natural affection. Often so. 

16 " The reasonable shore " is the shore of reason. 

17 " "Will put off my disguise." The Poet repeatedly uses case for clothes ; 
also for skin. — Sometime, in the next line, is formerly. Often so. 

18 Ariel uses " the bat's back" as his pleasant vehicle, to pursue Summer 
in its progress to other regions, and thus live merrily under continual blos- 
soms. Such appears the most natural as well as most poetical meaning 



scene I. THE TEMPEST. 137 

Pros. Why, that's my dainty Ariel ! I shall miss thee ; 
But yet thou shalt have freedom : — so, so, so. 
To the King's ship, invisible as thou art : 
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep 
Under the hatches ; the master and the boatswain 
Being awaked, enforce them to this place, 
And presently, I pr'ythee. 

Ari. I drink the air before me, and return 
Or e'er your pulse twice beat. [Exit Ariel. 

Gonza. All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement 
Inhabit here : some heavenly power guide us 
Out of this fearful country ! 

Pros. Behold, sir King, 

The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero : 
For more assurance that a living prince 
Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body ; 
And to thee and thy company I bid 
A hearty welcome. 

AI011. Wher 19 thou be'st he or no, 

Or some enchanted trifle 20 to abuse me, 
As late I have been, I not know : thy pulse 

of this much disputed passage. As a matter of fact, however, bats do 
not migrate in quest of Summer, but become torpid in winter. Was the 
Poet ignorant of this, or did he disregard it, thinking that such beings as 
Ariel were not bound to observe the rules of natural history? See Critical 
Notes. 

19 The Poet often so contracts whether. See Julius Ccesar, page 43, 
note 19. 

20 Enchanted trifle probably means bewitching phantom. Enchanted for 
enchanting,\n accordance with the usage, before noted, of active and passive 
forms indiscriminately. See page 60, note 59. Walker, however, thinks 
the meaning to be " some trifle produced by enchantment to abuse me." — 
Abuse, both verb and substantive, was often used in the sense of deceive, 
delude, or cheat. 



138 THE TEMPEST. ACT V. 

Beats, as of flesh and blood • and, since I saw thee, 

Th' affliction of my mind amends, with which, 

I fear, a madness held me : this must crave — 

An if this be at all 21 — a most strange story. 

Thy dukedom I resign 22 and do entreat 

Thou pardon me my wrongs. 23 But how should Prospero 

Be living and be here ? 

Pros. First, noble friend, 

Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot 
Be measured or confined. 

Go ma. Whether this be 

Or be not, I'll not swear. 

Pros. You do yet taste 

Some subtilties 24 o' the isle, that will not let you 
Believe things certain. — Welcome, my friends all : — 
[Aside io Sebas. and Anto.] But you, my brace of lords, 

were I so minded, 
I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you, 
And justify you traitors : 25 at this time 
I'll tell no tales. 

Sebas. \Aside to Anto.] The Devil speaks in him. 

21 That is, if there be any reality in all this. An if, again, as before ex- 
plained. See page 96, note 20. 

22 The dukedom of Milan had been made tributary to Naples by Anto- 
nio, as the price of aid in his usurpation. 

23 Still another instance of the construction mentioned in note 3 of this 
scene. "My wrongs" may mean either the wrongs I have done, or the 
wrongs I have suffered. Here it means the former. 

24 Subtilties are quaint deceptive inventions ; the word is common to 
ancient cookery, in which a disguised or ornamented dish is so termed. 
Fabyan's Chronicle, 1542, describes one made of pastry, " called a pelican 
sitting on his nest with his birds, and an image of Saint Catharine holding 
a book, and disputing with the doctors." 

25 "Prove you traitors," or, " justify myself for calling you such." 



scene I. THE TEMPEST. - 1 39 

Pros. Now, 

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother 
Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive 
Thy rankest fault ; all of them ; and require 
My dukedom of thee, which perforce, 26 I know, 
Thou must restore. 

AI011. If thou be'st Prospero, 

Give us particulars of thy preservation ; 
How thou hast met us here, who three hours since 
Were wreck'd upon this shore ; where I have lost — 
How sharp the point of this remembrance is ! — ■ 
My dear son Ferdinand. 

Pros. I'm woe 27 for't, sir. 

Alon. Irreparable is the loss~; and patience 
Says it is past her cure. 

Pros. I rather think 

You have not sought her help ; of whose soft grace, 
For the like loss I have her sovereign aid, 
And rest myself content. 

Alon. You the like loss ! 

Pros. As great to me, as late ; 28 and, portable 
To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker 
Than you may call to comfort you ; for I 
Have lost my daughter. 

Alon. A daughter ! 
O Heavens, that they were living both in Naples, 
The King and Queen there ! that they were, I wish 

26 Perforce is of force, that is, necessarily or of necessity. 

2" Woe was often used thus with an adjective sense ; sorry. 

28 " As great to me, and as recent." Or the meaning may be, " As great 
to me as it is recent." Either explanation suits, but I prefer the first. — 
Portable is endurable. The Poet has it repeatedly. 



140 THE TEMPEST. ACT v. 

Myself were mudded in that oozy bed 

Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter? 

Pros. In this last tempest. I perceive, these lords 
At this encounter do so much admire, 29 
That they devour their reason, and scarce think 
Their eyes do offices of truth, these words 
Are natural breath : 30 but, howsoe'er you have 
Been justled from your senses, know for certain 
That I am Prospero, and that very Duke 
Which was thrust forth of Milan ; who most strangely 
Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed, 
To be the lord on't. No more yet of this ; 31 
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day, 
Not a relation for a breakfast, nor 
Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir ; 
This cell's my Court : here have I few attendants, 
And subjects none abroad : pray you, look in. 
My dukedom since you've given me again, 
I will requite you with as good a thing ; 
At least bring forth a wonder to content ye 
As much as me my dukedom. 

The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers Ferdinand and 
Miranda playing at chess. 

Mira. Sweet lord, you play me false. 
Ferd. No, my dear'st love, 

I would not for the world. 

29 Shakespeare commonly uses admire and its derivatives in the Latin 
sense ; that of wonder or amazement. The meaning here is, that their reason 
is swallowed up in wonder. 

30 " That these words which I am speaking are the words of a real living 
man." 

31 No more of this now, ox for the present. So yet was often used. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 141 

Mira. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, 32 
And I would call it fair play. 

Alon. If this prove 

A vision of the island, one dear son 
Shall I twice lose. 33 

Sebas. A most high miracle ! 

Ferd. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful ! 
I've cursed them without cause. \_Kneels to Alon. 

Alon. Now all the blessings 

Of a glad father compass thee about ! 
Arise, and say how thou earnest here. 

Mira. O, wonder ! 

How many goodly creatures are there here ! 
How beauteous mankind is ! O brave new world, 
That has such people in't ! 

Pros. 'Tis new to thee. 

Alon. What is this maid with whom thou wast at play? 
Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours : 
Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us, 
And brought us thus together? 

32 The sense evidently wanted here is," you might play me false" '; but 
how to get this out of wrangle, is not very apparent. Was wrangle used as 
a technical term in chess and other games ? In King Henry V., i. 2, we 
have this : " He hath made a match with such a wrangler, that all the Courts 
of France will be disturb'd with chases." This is said with reference to the 
game of tennis ; and wrangler here seems to mean opponent or antagonist. 

Wrangle, however, is from the same original as wrong, and its radical sense 
is the same. Mr. Joseph Crosby thinks the word is used here in this its 
radical sense. He writes me as follows : " In the North of England, wrang- 
dom is a common word for zvrong, and wrangoitsly for wrongfully. Wrangle 
in this sentence is an explanatory parallelism of Miranda's ' play me false,' 
and means wrong me, — cheat me in the game." 

33 " Shall twice lose " appears to mean " shall lose a second time." He 
has in effect lost his son once in supposing him drowned ; and will lose him 
again in the dispelling of the vision, if vision it should prove. 



142 THE TEMPEST. ACT V. 

Ferd. Sir, she's mortal ; 

But by immortal Providence she's mine : 
I chose her when I could not ask my father 
For his advice, nor thought I had one. She 
Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan, 
Of whom so often I have heard renown, 
But never saw before ; of whom I have 
Received a second life ; and second father 
This lady makes him to me. 

Alon. I am hers : 

But, O, how oddly will it sound that I 
Must ask my child forgiveness ! 

Pros. There, sir, stop : 

Let us not burden our remembrance with 
A heaviness that's gone. J 

Gonza. / I've inly wept, 

Or should have spol^e* ere this. — Look down, you gods, 
And on this couple drop a blessed crown ! 
For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way 
Which brought us hither. 

Alon. I say, Amen, Gonzalo ! 

Gonza. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue 
Should become Kings of Naples ! O, rejoice 
Beyond a common joy ! and set it down 
With gold on lasting pillars : In one voyage 
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis ; 
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife 
Where he himself was lost ; Prospero, his dukedom, 
In a poor isle ; and all of us, ourselves, 
When no man was his own. 34 

34 When no man was in his senses, or had self-possession. 



SCENE I. THE TEMPEST. 1 43 

Alon. [To Ferd. and Mira.] Give me your hands : 
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart 
That doth not wish you joy ! 

Gonza. Be't so ! Amen ! — 

Re-enter Ariel, with the Master and Boatswain amaze dly fol- 
lowing. 

O, look, sir, look, sir ! here is more of us : 

I prophesied, if a gallows were on land, 

This fellow could not drown. — Now, blasphemy, 

That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore ? 

Hast thou no mouth by land ? What is the news ? 

Boats. The best news is, that we have safely found 
Our King and company ; the next, our ship — 
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split — 
Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when 
We first put out to sea. 

Art. '[Aside to Pros.] Sir, all this service 
Have I done since I went. 

Pros. [Aside to Ariel.] My tricksy 35 spirit ! 

Alon. These are not natural events ; they strengthen 
From strange to stranger. — Say, how came you hither ? 

Boats. If I did think, sir, I were well awake, 
I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, 
And — how we know not — all clapp'd under hatches ; 
Where, but even now, with strange and several noises 
Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains, 
And more diversity of sounds, all horrible, 
We were awaked ; straightway, at liberty : 
When we, in all her trim, freshly beheld 

35 Ariel seems to be called tricksy, because his execution has the celerity 
of magic, or of a juggler's tricks : " clever, adroit, dexterous," says Dyce. 



144 THE TEMPEST. ACT V. 

Our royal, good, and gallant ship ; our master 
Capering to eye her : 36 on a trice, so please you, 
Even in a dream, were we divided from them, 
And were brought moping 37 hither. 

Ari. [Aside to Pros.] Was't well done ? 

Pros. [Aside to Ari.] Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt 
be free. 

Alori. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod ; 
And there is in this business more than Nature 
Was ever conduct of : 38 some oracle 
Must rectify our knowledge. 

Pros. Sir, my liege, 

Do not infest your mind with beating on 39 
The strangeness of this business ; at pick'd leisure, 
Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve 40 you — 
Which to you shall seem probable — of every 
These happen'd accidents : till when, be cheerful, 
And think of each thing well. — [Aside to Ariel.] Come 

hither, spirit : 
Set Caliban and his companions free ; 
Untie the spell. [Exit Ari.] — How fares my gracious sir ? 
There are yet missing of your company 
Some few odd lads that you remember not. 

36 " Capering to eye her " is leaping or dancing with joy at seeing her. 
Still another instance of the infinitive used gerundively. 

37 To mope is to be dull or stupid ; originally, dim-sighted. 

38 Conduct for conductor; that is, guide or leader. Often so. 

39 We have a like expression in use now, — " Still hammering at it." 

40 In Shakespeare, to resolve often means to satisfy, or to explain satis- 
factorily. — Single appears to be used adverbially here, its force going with 
the predicate ; and the last which refers to resolve : " I will explain to you 
— and the explanation shall seem to you natural and likely — all these inci- 
dents, severally, or in detail, as they have happened." 



scene I. THE TEMPEST. 145 

Re-enter Ariel, driving in Caliban, Stephano, and Trin- 
CULO, in their stolen apparel. 

Steph. Every man shift for all the rest, 41 and let no man 
take care for himself; for all is but fortune. — Coragio, bully- 
monster, coragio ! 

Trin. If these be true spies which I wear in my head, 
here's a goodly sight. 

Cal. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed ! 
How fine my master is ! I am afraid 
He will chastise me. 

Sebas. Ha, ha ! 
What things are these, my Lord Antonio ? 
Will money buy 'em ? 

Anto. Very like ; one of them 

Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. 

Pros. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords, 
Then say if they be true. This mis-shaped knave, — 
His mother was a witch ; and one so strong 
That could control the Moon, make flows and ebbs, 
And deal in her command without her power. 42 
These three have robb'd me ; and this demi-devil — 
For he's a bastard one — had plotted with them 
To take my life : two of these fellows you 
Must know and own ; this thing of darkness I 
Acknowledge mine. 

41 Stephano's tongue is rather tipsy still, and staggers into a misplace- 
ment of his words. He means " Let every man shift for himself." 

42 Without has here the sense of beyond ; ')' : a common usage in the Poet's 
time. So in A Midsummer-Night' s Dream, iv. 1 : " Where we might be with- 
out the peril of th' Athenian law." And in Jonson's Cynthia s Revels, i. 4 : 
" O, now I apprehend you : your phrase was without me before." So that 
the meaning of the text is, " who could outdo the Moon in exercising the 
Moon's own command." 



146 THE TEMPEST. ACT v. 

CaL I shall be pinch 'd to death. 

AI011. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler? 

Sebas. He is drunk now : where had he wine ? 

Alon. And Trinculo is reeling ripe : where should they 
Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 43 'em? — 
How earnest thou in this pickle ? 

Trin. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last, 
that, I fear me, will never out of my bones : I shall not fear 
fly-blowing. 44 

Sebas. Why, how now, Stephano ! 

Steph. O, touch me not ! I am not Stephano. but a 
cramp. 

Pros. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah? 

Steph. I should have been a sore 45 one, then. 

Alon. \_P0i11ti11g to Cal.] This is as strange a thing as 
e'er I look'd on. 

Pros. He is as disproportion'd in his manners 
As in his shape. — Go, sirrah, to my cell ; 

43 The phrase being gilded was a trite one for being drunk ; perhaps 
from the effect of liquor in colouring the face, but more likely because 
drinking puts one into golden altitudes. It has been suggested, also, that 
there is an allusion to the grand elixir of the alchemists, which was an ideal 
medicine for gilding a base metal in the sense of transmuting it into gold; 
as also for repairing health and prolonging life in man. This, too, is proba- 
ble enough ; for the Poet is fond of clustering various ideas round a single 
image. 

44 Trinculo is playing rather deeply upon fickle ; and one of the senses 
here intended is that of being pickled in salt or brine so as not to become 
tainted. Fly-blows are the maggot-eggs deposited by flies ; and to Jly-blow 
is to taint with such eggs. 

45 A pun upon the different senses of sore, one of which is harsh, severe, 
or oppressive. The same equivoque occurs in 2 Henry the Sixth, iv. 7, where 
Dick proposes that Cade's mouth be the source of English law, and John 
remarks, aside, — " Mass, 'twill be a sore law, then ; for he was thrust in the 
mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet." 



scene i. THE TEMPEST. 147 

Take with you your companions ; as you look 
To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. 

Cal. Ay, that I will ; and I'll be wise hereafter, 
And seek for grace. What a thrice double ass 
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, 
And worship this dull fool S 

Pros. Go to ; away ! 

Alon. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it. 

Sebas. Or stole it, rather. 

{Exeunt Cal., Steph., and Trin. 

Pros. Sir, I invite your Highness and your train 
To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest 
For this one night ; which, part of it, I'll waste 
With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it 
Go quick away, — the story of my life, 
And the particular accidents gone by, 
Since I came to this isle : and in the morn 
I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples, 
Where I have hope to see the nuptial 
Of these our dear-beloved solemnized ; 
And thence retire me 46 to my Milan, where 
Every third thought shall be my grave. 

Alon. I long 

To hear the story of your life, which must 
Take the ear strangely. 

Pros. I'll deliver all ; 

And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales, 
And sail so expeditious, that shall catch 
Your royal fleet far off. — \Aside to Ari.] My Ariel, 
chick, 

46 That is, withdraw myself. The Poet has various instances of retire 
thus used as a transitive verb. 



148 THE TEMPEST. act v. 

That is thy charge : then to the elements 

Be free, and fare thou well ! — Please you, draw near. 

\_Exeunt t 

EPILOGUE. 

SPOKEN BY PROSPERO. 

Now my charms are all o'erthrown, 
And what strength I have's mine own, — 
Which is most faint : now, 'tis true, 
I must be here confined by you, 
Or sent to Naples. Let me not, 
Since I have my dukedom got, 
And pardon 'd the deceiver, dwell 
In this bare island by your spell ; 
But release me from my bands, 
With the help of your good hands. 47 
Gentle breath of yours my sails 
Must fill, or else my project fails, 
Which was to please : now I want 
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant ; 
And my ending is despair, 
Unless I be relieved by prayer ; 
Which pierces so, that it assaults 
Mercy itself, and frees all faults. 
As you from crimes would pardon'd be, 
Let your indulgence set me free. 

47 The Epilogue is supposed to be addressed to the theatrical audience, 
and the speaker here solicits their applause by the clapping of their hands. 
Noise was a breaker of enchantments and spells ; hence the applause would 
release him from his bonds. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



ACT I., SCENE I. 



Page 44. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, &c. — Steevens conjec- 
tured " Blow, till thou burst thee, wind." This accords with a similar 
passage in King Lear, iii. 2 : " Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks ! " 
See, however, foot-note 3. 

P. 45 . Bring her to try wf th' main-course. — In the original, " bring 
her to Try with Maine-course"; which leaves us in doubt as to how 
the clause should be punctuated. Mr. Grant White, at the suggestion 
of Mr. W. W. Story, prints "Bring her to: try wi' th' main-course"; 
and quotes the following from Lord Mulgrave, a sailor critic : " The 
gale increasing, the topmast is struck, to take the weight from aloft, 
make the ship drive less to leeward, and bear the mainsail, under 
which the ship is brought toP The likelihoods seem about evenly bal- 
anced between the two ways of printing the passage. Of the more 
recent editors, Collier, Staunton, Singer, and Dyce punctuate as in the 
text. See foot-note 9. 

P. 47. Ling, heath, broom, furze, any thing. — The original has 
" Long heath, Browne firrs." But it does not appear that there are or 
ever were any plants known as long heath and brozvn furze. The read- 
ing in the text is Hanmer's, and has the unqualified approval of Walk- 
er ; who observes, " The balance requires it. Besides, what are long 
heath and brown furze ? " See foot-note 17. 

149 



150 THE TEMPEST. 



ACT I., SCENE I. 

P. 48. A brave vessel, 

Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her. — So Theobald 
and Collier's second folio : the original has creature instead of crea- 
tures. 

P. 50. I have with such prevision in mine art. — The old text has 
provision. The change is from Collier's second folio, and accords 
with what Ariel says in ii. I : " My master through his art foresees the 
danger that you, his friend, are in." 

P. 51. And thy father 

Was Duke of Milan ; thou his only heir, 

A princess, — no worse issued. — The old text reads " and his 
onelyheire"; the and being evidently repeated by mistake from the 
preceding line. Steevens made the correction. The original also has 
" And Princesse ; no worse Issued." Corrected by Pope. The old 
copies have various instances of and thus misprinted for a. So in 
King Henry VIII., ii. 4 : " On the debating And Marriage 'twixt the 
Duke of Orleance and Our daughter Mary." 

P. 53. The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, 

And sucked the verdure out on't. — The original reads " Suck'd 
my verdure"; the my being probably repeated by mistake from the 
preceding line. 

P. 53. Like one 

Who having unto truth, by falsing of it, 

Made such a sinner of his memory, 

To credit his own lie. — The old copies read "having into 
truth, by telling of it." This reading, with zinto substituted for into, is 
commonly explained by making it refer to lie in the second line after. 
But is this, or was it ever, a legitimate English construction? Collier's 
second folio substitutes to untruth for into truth ; rather plausibly, at 
first sight. But the meaning in that case would be, " having made his 



CRITICAL NOTES. 151 

memory a sinner to untruth by lying " ; whereas the sense required 
clearly is, " having made his memory a sinner unto truth by lying." 
This sense is aptly expressed by falsing, as, I think, every one will see. 
Nor does it seem to me at all unlikely that tell should have been 
misprinted for fals ; especially as the verb to false was passing out of 
use before 1623. The quotations given in foot-note 27 appear to yield 
the present reading ample support ; but, as several eminent Shake- 
spearians with whom I have corresponded object to it, I here add a 
few others. So in The Faerie Queene, i. 9, 46 : — 

Is not enough, that to this Lady mild 
Thou falsed hast thy faith with perjuree? 

Also, in the same, ii. 5,9: — 

Sometimes athwart, sometimes he strook him strayt, 
And falsed oft his blowes t' illude him with such bayt. 

Also, in the Epilogue to The Shepheards Calendar : — 

To teach the ruder shepheard how to feede his sheepe, 
And from the falsers fraud his folded flocke to keepe. 

Also, in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond : — 

Such one was I, my beauty was mine own; 

No borrow'd blush, which bankrupt beauties seek, 
That new-found shame, a sin to us unknown, — 

Th' adulterate beauty of a falsed cheek. 

As to the other change, unto for into, it appears that these two 
forms were often used indiscriminately ; at all events, the old editions 
often have into -where our present idiom absolutely requires unto. So 
in Cymbeline, i. 6 : " Such a holy witch, that he enchants societies into 
him." And, as an instance of the converse, in A Midsummer- Night 's 
Dream, i. 1, the quartos read, "That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a 
hell"; while the folio has "a heaven into a hell." 

But the Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith has lately proposed an ingenious 
application of the old text, which seems to call for some notice. He 
thinks the right construction to be, " by telling of it into truth." And 
he quotes several instances of like expression ; as the following from 
South's Sermons: "Till he has thought a distasteful apprehension into 
an action of 'murder v" And again: "Yet vice cannot be praised into 
virtue?" 1 This form of speech is not indeed uncommon, and it has 



152 . THE TEMPEST. 

long been familiar to me ; but I cannot think the cases parallel. In 
that construction of the passage the pronoun it must refer to some an- 
tecedent, and cannot be used absolutely, as it well may be in the read- 
ing here given ; yet there is nothing for it to refer to, at least nothing 
but lie, in the second line after, which is, I think, inadmissible, for the 
reason already stated. Moreover, the sense of telling a lie into truth 
seems to me quite unsuited to the place. In short, this explanation is 
so strained and far-fetched, that it only operates with me as a further 
argument against the old text. 

P. 54. To have no screen between this part he play' 'd 

And them he play 'd it for, he needs will be 

Absolute Milan. — The original reads " And him he play'd it 
for." The correction is Mr. P. A. Daniel's, and seems to me eminently 
judicious. I never could make any sense out of the old text. See 
foot-note 31. 

P. 55. Mira. I should sin 

To think but nobly of my grandmother. 

Pros. Good wombs have borne bad sons. — In the old text, 
the last line is made a part of Miranda's speech. Theobald thought 
it should be as here given, and so Hanmer printed it. 

P. 55* One midnight 

Fated to tW practice did Antonio open 

The gates of Milan ; and, i' the dead of darkness, 

The ministers for tft pttrpose httrried thence 

Me and thy crying self. — The original has " Fated to th' pur- 
posed The change is from Collier's second folio, and is admitted on 
the ground that purpose may have got repeated by mistake from the 
second line after. Staunton thinks it " an improvement," and Dyce 
adopts it. Still I do not feel quite sure about it. 

P. 55. /, not remembering how I cried on't then, 

Will cry it o'er again. — The original has "howl cried out 
then"; which gives nothing for it, in the next line, to refer to. Lett- 
som would read " how I cried it then." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 53 

P. 56. Dear, they durst not — 

So dear the love my people bore me — set 

A mark so bloody on the business. — The original has " nor set 
A marke." The nor both spoils the metre, and, to say the least, hurts 
the sense. The omission was proposed by Mr. William Aldis Wright. 

P. 56. Where they prepared 

A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd, 
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast ; the very rats 

Instinctively had quit it. — The original has butt instead of 
boat, and, in the last line, have instead of had. 

P. 56. Thou didst smile, 

Infused with a fortitude from Heaven, 

When I have degg'd the sea with drops full salt. — The original 
reads " When I have deck'd the sea." The word decked has given the 
editors a deal of trouble ; and no wonder, for neither of its admitted 
senses at all suits the context. Dyce, I think, was the first to suggest 
that it might be " a corruption of the provincialism degg'd, that is, sprin- 
kled.^ See foot-note 44. 

P. 57. Some food we had, and some fresh water, that 

A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, 

Out of his charity, — being then appointed 

Master of this design, — did give us. — The original has "who 
being then appointed." The pronoun who upsets both grammar and 
metre, and also obscures the sense. Pope omits it. 

P. 59. Jove's lightnings, the precursors 

C the dreadful thunder claps, more momentary 
And sight-outrunning were not: the fire, and cracks 
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune 
Seem'd to besiege, &c. — The original has lightning for light- 
nings, and " Seeme to besiege." 

P. 60. On their unstaining garments not a blemish, 

But fresher than before. — The old text has "on their sustain- 
ing garments" ; which cannot well be explained to any fitting sense. 



154 THE TEMPEST. 

Probably the Poet's language was sophisticated by the transcriber or 
the printer, not understanding the old indiscriminate use of active and 
passive forms. Since the change was made, I learn that Mr. Sped- 
ding had conjectured the same reading. See foot-note 59. 

P. 62. Pros. What is the time o' the day ? 

Ariel. Past the mid season, 

At least two glasses. 

Pros. The time ''twixt six and now 

Must by ms both be spent most preciously. — The old copies print 
" At least two glasses " as a part of Prospero's next speech. Cor- 
rected by Warburton. 

P. 62. Told thee no lies, made no mistakings. — The original has 
" made thee no mistakings"; where thee spoils the verse without helping 
the sense. Doubtless an accidental repetition from the preceding clause. 

P. 63. For one thing she had, 

They zvould not take her life. — The original reads "For one 
thing she didP This is, to say the least, very obscure, and there is 
nothing in the play that throws any light upon it. The reading in the 
text is explained by what Prospero says in his next speech: "This 
blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child," &c. The correction was 
proposed to me by Mr. Joseph Crosby. 

P. 64. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea : 

Be subject to no sight but mine. — The original reads, "most 
ridiculously," says Dyce, " no sight but thine and mine." It also omits 
to after like. Supplied in the second folio. 

P. 65. Go take this shape, 

And hither come irtt : hence with diligence ! — So Hanmer. 
The original repeats go before hence, thus spoiling the metre to no 
purpose. 

P. 65. Come forth, I say f there's other business for thee : 

Come forth, thou tortoise! — The original omits the second 
forth. Both sense and metre evidently require it to be repeated along 
with Come. Inserted by Steevens. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 55 

P. 65. As wicked dezu as e'er my mother brusftd 

With raven's feather from unwholesome fen. — Upon this Dyce 
notes as follows : " Though wicked, as an epithet of dew, makes very 
good sense, (meaning baleful,) I suspect that it is not Shakespeare's 
word, and that it has been repeated by mistake from the line just 
above." Perhaps the Poet wrote cursed. 

P. 66. A south-west blow on ye, 

And blister you all o'er. — Ought it not to be "A south-west 
wind blow on ye "? It seems to me that both sense and metre call 
for tvind. And where two or more consecutive words begin with the 
same or similar letters, one is very apt to drop out. 

P. 66. When thou earnest here first, 

Thou strokedst me and madest much of me. — The old text is 
without here. Ritson thought the word ought to be supplied ; and 
Walker says, " ' earnest here first,' surely." 

P. 68. Therefore wast thou 

Deservedly confined into this rock, 

Who hadst deserved more than a prison. — I suspect, with 
Walker, that deservedly crept into the text from some other hand than 
Shakespeare's. Walker observes that " the nine-syllable line is alien 
to Shakespeare," and proposes to print as follows, adding, "Note the 
difference of the flow " : — 

Therefore wast thou 
Confined into this rock, who hadst deserved 
More than a prison. 

P. 69. Curtsied when you have, and kissed 
The wild waves whist, 
Foot it featly here and there. — So printed in the original. 
Dyce, with most of the modern editors, makes the second line paren- 
thetical, thus : — 

Curtsied when you have and kiss'd, — 
The wild waves whist, — &c. 

This of course means " the wild waves being whist." Whist, I sup- 
pose, means still or calm ; and how the waves could be wild and calm 



156 THE TEMPEST. 

at the same time, does not well appear. Besides, Dyce's mode of 
printing, it seems to me, expunges a delicate touch of poetry that is 
well worth keeping. See foot-note 89. 

P. 69. Hark, hark! the watch-dogs bark, &c. — I here adopt the 
reading and arrangement proposed by Mr. P. A. Daniel ; which, I 
think, fairly extricate the latter part of Ariel's song from all difficulty. 
In the original it stands thus : — 

Foote itfeatly heere, and there, and sweete Sprights beare 
the burthen. Burthen dispersedly. 

Harke, harke, bowgh wauigh ; the watch- Dogges barke, 
bowgh-wawgh . 
Ar. Hark, hark, I hear e, the straine of strutting Chanticlere 
cry cockadidle-dowe. 

Mr. Daniel comments upon the matter as follows : " Every reader will, 
I think, accept Pope's alteration of beare the burthen to the burthen 
beare ; but there seems to be a diversity of opinion as to what that 
burthen is. Some editors only give bowgh-wawgh, bozvgh-wawgh, as 
the burthen ; others the whole line, Harke, harke, bozvgh-wawgh : the 
watch-dogges barke, bowgh-wawgh ; and all give cry cockadidle-dozve as 
part of Ariel's song. Cry seems to me to be merely a stage-direction. 
The burthen heard dispersedly is the barking of dogs and the crowing 
of cocks." 

P. 73. What, I say, 

My fool my tutor ? — The original has foot instead of fool. 
"Walker says, " ReadyW/," and quotes from Beaumont and Fletcher's 
Pilgrim, iv. I : — 

When fools and mad-folks shall be tutors to me, 
And feel my sores, yet I unsensible, &c. 

P. 74. My father's loss, the zveakness zvhich I feel, 

The wreck of all my friends, and this man's threats 

To whom I am szcbdued, are light to me. — The original reads 

" nor this man's threats," and " are bzct light to me "; of which the one 

plainly upsets the sense, and the other the metre. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 157 

ACT II., SCENE I. 
P. 76. I pr'ythee spare me. — So Walker. The original lacks me. 

P. 77. Adri. Though this island seem to be desert, — 

Sebas. Ha, ha, ha ! — So, you're paid. 

Adri. — uninhabitable, &c. — The original prints the second 
line as two speeches, and assigns the latter part, " So, you're paid," to 
Antonio. Mr. White changes you're paid to you've paid. The cor- 
rection in the text is Theobald's. See foot-note 5. 

P. 79. Alon. Ah! — The original has " Gon." instead oi"Alon? 
The correction is Staunton's ; who notes, " this exclamation belongs to 
Alonso, who is awakened from his trance of grief." 

P. 81. And the fair soul herself 

Weigh' d, between loathness arid obedience, at 

Which end the beam should bow. — The original reads " at 
Which end 0' the beam should bow." Modern editions generally 
change should to she'd ; but it seems to me much better to erase 0', and 
thus make beam the subject of should bow. Pope's correction. 

P. S3. Sebas. God save his Majesty ! 

Anto. Long live Gonzalo ! — So 

Walker. The original omits God, which was probably stricken out by 
the Master of the Revels in obedience to the well-known statute 
against profanity. In such matters, the Poet's judgment seems prefer- 
able to an Act of Parliament. The folio has many instances of such 
omission, where the quartos which were printed before the passing of 
the Act in question give the text as Shakespeare undoubtedly wrote it. 

P. 84. Will you laugh me asleep? for I am very heavy. 

Anto. Go sleep, and hear us not. — The original is without 
not. There appears no assignable reason of wit why the Poet should 
have left it out, and all other reasons certainly require it. Keightly's 
correction. 



158 THE TEMPEST. 

P. 87. Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, — 

But doubt discovery there. — Here Capell substitutes doubts for 
doubt, but, as it seems to me, without at all relieving the obscurity. 
Hanmer reads " But drops discovery there." This is more intelligible, 
but still unsatisfactory. The passage has long been a poser to me, as 
I have met with no sufficient explanation of it. Possibly we ought to 
read "Nor aught discover there." See foot-note 42. 

P. 87. She that is Queen of Tunis ; she that dwells 

Ten leagues beyond man's life ; she that from Naples 
Can have no note, unless the Sun were post, — 
The Man-t ) -the-moort 's too sloiv, — till new-born chins 
Be rough and razorable. She 'twas for zvhom we 
All were sea-swallowed, though some cast again ; 
And, by that destiny, to perform an act, &c. — In the old text, 
the fifth of these lines stands precisely thus : " Be rough, and Razor-able : 
She that from whom." The modern text is, " Be rough and razorable ; 
she that from whom," or " she from whom," or " she from whom com- 
ing?' But these readings all seem to me to miss the essential point; 
for they proceed upon the supposal that what comes after razorable is 
in the same construction with what precedes ; which appears quite at 
odds with the proper logic of the passage, and also with the right 
Shakespearian rhythm of thought and expression. And the old text 
rather looks as if a full stop were intended at razorable, and a new 
construction there to begin. On the other hand, however, in the old 
" She that from whom," that must needs be taken as a relative pro- 
noun, just as it is in the preceding clauses. Now " she that from 
whom " is not English, and, I am sure, never was ; for it is the same 
as " she who from whom," which is absurd. At one time I thought of 
reading " She's that from whom," which makes that a demonstrative 
pronoun, and thus removes the absurdity aforesaid. But it seems to 
me better to substitute 'twas, and so get rid of that altogether. Nor is 
the change at all violent. And my theory is, that " she that from " got 
repeated by a sort of contagion from the third line above. As to the 
change of from into for, perhaps it is not strictly necessary, as from 
may possibly yield the same meaning. At all events,/??- whom legiti- 
mately carries the sense of on whose account, or, because of whom. Tor 
is often used thus. — In the old text, again, the pronoun we stands at 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 59 

the beginning of the sixth line, instead of at the end of the fifth. This 
change is made because, in the old arrangement, the proper rhythm 
of the sixth is spoiled, it being against all Shakespearian rules to set 
an extra syllable at the beginning of a verse ; whereas nothing is more 
common than such syllables at the end. See foot-note 45. 

P. 88. A space whose every cubit 

Seems to cry ottt, "ffozo shalt thou, Claribel, 
Measure us back to Naples ? Keep in Tunis, 
And let Sebastian wake!'''' — The original reads "How skall 
that Claribel Measure," &c. The reading here given is Hanmer's. I 
am surprised that it has not been more generally accepted ; for the 
continuation of the speech, " Keep in Tunis," &c, is clearly an apos- 
trophe to Claribel, and was no doubt meant to be in the same con- 
struction. 

P. 89. Sebas. But, for your conscience — ■ 

Anto. Ay, sir ; and where lies that? if "'twere a kibe, 
' Tzvould put me to my slipper. — The original is without and in 
the second of these lines. Inserted by Dyce. 

P. 89. Here lies your brother, 

No better than the earth he lies upon, 

If he were that which nozv he's like ; whom I, 

With this obedient steel, three inches of it, 

Can lay to bed for ever. — In the third of these lines, the orig- 
inal has that's dead after " now he's like," and transfers whom I to the 
beginning of the next line. Steevens made the following just note 
upon the passage : " The words that's dead (as Dr. Farmer observes to 
me) are evidently a gloss, or marginal note, which has found its way 
into the text. Such a supplement is useless to the speaker's meaning, 
and the next verse becomes redundant by its insertion." 

P. 90. My master through his art foresees the danger 

That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth — 
For else his project dies — to keep thee living. — The original 
reads " to keepe them living." Some editors change project to projects, 
and thus make an antecedent for them ; but Dyce's correction is un- 
questionably right. 



160 THE TEMPEST. 

P. 90. Gon. [Waking.] Now, good angels 

Preserve the King! — [To Sebas. and Anto.] Why, how now! — 

[To Alon.] Ho, awake ! 
[To Sebas. and Anto.] Why are you drawn ? wherefore this 
ghastly looking? 
Alon. [Waking.] What's the matter ? — I here give the ar- 
rangement which Dyce adopted and improved from Staunton. The 
old text makes a strange muddle of the passage, thus : — 

Gon. Now, good Angels preserve the King. 
Alon. Why how now hoa ; awake ? why are you drawn ? 
Wherefore this ghastly looking ? 
Gon. What's the matter ? 

P. 91. I saw their weapons drawn : there was a noise, 

That's verity. — Instead of verity, the original has verily. Cor- 
rected by Pope. 

ACT II., SCENE II. 

P. 96. Here ; swear, man, how thou escapedst. — The old text reads 
" swere then how thou escap'dst." This makes the speech addressed 
to Caliban, whereas the context clearly requires it to be addressed to 
Trinculo. Several ways of printing have been proposed, in order to 
get over the difficulty ; but they only remove one difficulty to draw on 
another. Probably the transcriber or compositor supposed the speech 
addressed to Caliban, and sophisticated it into logical harmony with 
that idea, by changing man into then. 

P. 98. Arid sometimes P 11 get thee 

Young staniels fro m the rock. — Instead of staniels, the original 
has scamels, which has drawn forth a deal of commentary. The cor- 
rection is Dyce's, from whose remarks on the passage I condense the 
following : " Here scamels has been explained as the diminutive of 
scams, and as meaning limpets. But I have little or no doubt that it 
is a misprint : for who gathers young limpets ? and besides, the words 
from the rock would seem to be equivalent to from the cliffs. Theo- 
bald substituted shamois, and also proposed sea-malls or sea-mells, and 
stannels or staniels. In the first place, staniels comes very near the 



CRITICAL NOTES. l6l 

trace of the old letters. Secondly, staniels accords well with the 
context, 'from the rock'; for, as Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary 
tells us, the ' Kestrel, Stannel, or Windhover, is one of our most com- 
mon species of hawks, especially in the more rocky situations and 
high cliffs on our coasts, where they breed? Thirdly, in another passage 
of Shakespeare, where nobody doubts that the genuine reading is 
staniel, all the old editions exhibit the gross misprint, stallion : 'And 
with what wing the stallion checks at it ! ' Twelfth Night, ii. 5." 

P. 98. Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish. — The original has 
trenchering, " which," says Dyce, " is undoubtedly an error of the tran- 
scriber or compositor, occasioned by the preceding words firing and 
requiring?* Pope's correction. 

ACT III., SCENE I. 

P. 99. This my mean task woidd be 

As heavy to me as 'tis odious, but 

The mistress, &c. — The original lacks 'tis, which was inserted 
by Pope ; and rightly, beyond question. 

P. 99. But these szveet thoughts do even refresh my labour ; 

Most busy zvhen I do it least. — The original has labours instead 
of labour, and also reads " Most busie lest, when I doe it." The sec- 
ond folio changes lest to least. But the two forms were often used 
indifferently, and either form was used in both the senses of our pres- 
ent words lest and least. Modern editions generally print labour in- 
stead of labours, so as to harmonize with it in the next line. Few 
passages in Shakespeare have been more fruitful of comment and con- 
troversy than this. The list of changes made or proposed is quite too 
long for reproduction here. With the old reading it is uncertain what 
most busy refers to or is the predicate of ; that is to say, whether the 
meaning be " / being most busy," or " these sweet thoughts being most 
busy." For the latter sense the best reading I have met with is " most 
busiest" proposed by Holt White, and adopted by Singer and Grant 
White. But had this been the Poet's thought he would probably have 
written " Most busy they, when I do it." Dyce prints, with Theobald, 
" Most busiless," which, of course, makes the phrase refer to the speaker 



1 62 THE TEMPEST. 

himself ; but the reading is to me quite unsatisfactory. On the whole, 
it seems much better to connect lest or least with what follows, and not 
with what precedes. It is worth noting, also, that the old reading 
throws the ictus on / and it, whereas it ought, apparently, to fall on 
when and do. Hardly any corruptions are more frequent in Shake- 
speare than those resulting from misplacement of words, and even of 
whole lines. Many are the cases where similar transpositions have to 
be made. In this case we might read " Most busy, least when I do it"; 
but this gives us a very awkward inversion, and both sense and rhythm 
come much better by transposing least to the end. But I suspect, after 
all, that the Poet first wrote most busie, then interlined lest or least as a 
correction, and that the two got printed together ; so that we ought to 
read " Least busy when I do it." And so Pope reads. — Perhaps I ought 
to add that Mr. A. E. Brae proposes to read " my labour's most busy 
hest"; hest being taken in the sense of task or exaction. "With this 
reading, as the proposer observes, " an object is given to the posses- 
sive s in labour's, and an antecedent provided for the pronoun it in the 
last line." But this reading, I think, would make the passage rather 
too tame. See foot-note 2. 

P. 103. So glad of this as they I cannot be, 

Who am surprised withal. — The old text reads " Who are sur- 
prised tvith all." Theobald changed with all to withal, and rightly, 
beyond question. The same misprint occurs frequently, as Walker 
has shown. And so are is, I have no doubt, a misprint for am. Pros- 
pero is himself surprised, as indeed he well may be, that his wish has 
been crowned so far beyond his expectations ; and it is most natural 
that he should be expressing that surprise : but the lovers, I take it, 
are not at all surprised at what has sprung up in their hearts ; it seems 
to them the most natural thing in the world. 



ACT III., SCENE II. 

P. 105. Wilt thou be pleased 

To hearken once again the suit I made thee ? — The original 
prints this speech as prose, and reads " to hearken once again to the 
suit I made to thee." Caliban everywhere else, I believe, except in 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 63 

his next speech, uses verse : it seems indeed one of his leading char- 
acteristics to do so. Dyce thinks the present speech should be printed 
as in the text. 

P. 107. He has brave utensils, — for so he calls them, — 

Which, when he has a house, he'll deck't withal. — So Hanmer 
and Walker. The original, decke for deck't. 

P. 108. / ne'er saw woman, 

But only Sycorax my dam and she. — The original reads "I 
never saw a woman." Corrected by Pope. 

P. 109. Cal. The sound is going away ; lef s follow it, 

And after do our work.— The old copies assign this speech to 
Trinculo. The correction is Mr. P. A. Daniel's, who justly observes 
that " Stephano replies to it, ' Lead, monster ; we'll follow.' " 

P. no. Steph. I would I could see this laborer ! he lays it on. — ■ 
Wilt come ? 

Trin. I'll follow, Stephano. — Such is clearly the right distribution, 
as Ritson observes. The old copies make Wilt come the beginning 
of Trinculo's speech. 

ACT III., SCENE III. 

P. 113. Each putter-out of one for five. — The original inverts the 
order here, of five for one ; which can hardly be made to yield the 
right sense. The correction is Thirlby's. See foot-note 12. 

P. 114. The never-surfeited sea 

Hath caused to belch up ; yea, and on this island, 
Where man doth not inhabit. — The original reads " to belch 
up you." But the object of belch up is expressed in whom, fourth line 
above ; the regular construction being, " You are three men of sin, 
whom Destiny hath caused the never-surfeited sea to belch up." So 
that you coming in after belch up is, to say the least, extremely awk- 
ward. And, as we have you again in the next line, right under yea, 
the misprint, if it be one, is easily accounted for. The correction is 
Staunton's. 



164 THE TEMPEST. 

P. 116. Their great guilt, 

Like poison given to work a long time after. — The original 
reads "work a great time after." — The change is Walker's, who sup- 
poses great to have been repeated by mistake from the preceding line. 



ACT IV., SCENE I. 

P. 117. As I hope 

For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, 
With love such as 'tis now, the murkiest even, 
The most oppdrtune place, the strongest suggestion 
Our worser genius can, &c. — The old text has "the murkiest 
den." The reading even or e'en for den was proposed by " C. T." in 
Notes and Queries, July 25, 1874. The natural logic of the passage 
plainly requires some word denoting time ; as the speaker is appar- 
ently supposing a concurrence of the several inducements of time, 
place, and inclination. Besides, the sense of " murkiest den " is better 
expressed in " most oppdrtune place." The misprint of d for e occurs, 
I think, oftener than any other. 

P. 119. Thy banks with peoned and twilled brims, 

Which spongy April at thy hest betrims, 

To ?nake cold nymphs chaste crowns. — The first of these lines has 
proved, with one exception, more fruitful of comment and controversy 
than any other passage in the play. Those who retain the old reading 
commonly explain peoned 'or pionedas meaning dug, and tzvilledas mean- 
ing ridged, or made into ridges, — a sense which it bears in reference 
to some kinds of cloth. But the words so explained will nowise cohere 
with the purpose assigned, "to make cold nymphs chaste crowns." 
Others understand peoned as referring to the well-known flower called 
peony, and change tzvilled to lilied. This gives a meaning in harmony 
with the context indeed, but hardly consistent with fact : for, though 
it appears from Bacon's essay Of Gardens that peonies and lilies 
bloomed in April, it nowhere appears that those flowers bloomed, or 
even grew, in such places as the brims of rivers. In fact, the peony, 
as it is known to us, is not a wild flower, does not grow in marshy 
grounds, and has no connection with river-banks. The difficulty, I 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 65 

think, is fairly cleared up by The Edinburgh Review for October, 1872. 
The learned writer has the following : " We could not but believe that 
there must be some flower, most probably a water-flower, or one living 
on marshy ground, that was provincially known as a peony. In confirm- 
ation of this view, we were informed by a clergyman who was for many 
years incumbent of a parish in the county, XhdX peony is the name given 
in Warwickshire to the marsh-marigold. On a little reflection it was 
not difficult to see why the name of the peony should have been trans- 
ferred to the marsh-marigold. In their early stages, when the peculiar 
state of the bud naturally attracts attention, the peony and marsh-mari- 
gold are alike, not only in growth and form, but in colour also. The 
marsh-marigold haunts the watery margins as the constant associate 
of reeds and rushes, blooms in ' spongy April,' and, in common with 
other water flowers, is twined with sedge 'to make cold nymphs 
chaste crowns.' " The writer also quotes from Mrs. Loudon's descrip- 
tion of the flower: "This is one of the most showy of the British 
plants, and it is also one of the most common, as there are few ponds 
or slow rivers in Great Britain that have not some of these plants 
growing on their banks in April and May." In regard to twilled also, 
the same writer shows that twills was an old provincial name for reeds 
and certain species of sedge. " The word is indeed," says he, " still 
retained in its secondary application, being commercially used to denote 
the fluted or rib-like effect produced on various fabrics by a kind of 
ridged or carded weaving. Twilled is, therefore, the very word to 
describe the crowded sedges in the shallower reaches of the Avon as 
it winds around Stratford." On the whole, then, I am satisfied that 
the old reading must stand; though, without the foregoing explanation, 
I was never able to see any sense in it. See foot-note 14. 

P. 120. And thy brown groves, 

Whose shadow the dis?nissed bachelor loves. — So Hanmer and 
Collier's second folio. The original has " thy broom groves." Milton 
uses brown repeatedly in the same way. So in Paradise Lost, ix. 1088 : 
"Where highest woods spread their umbrage broad and brown at even- 
ing." The change in the text is strongly opposed by some. I can 
well understand why a grove should be called brown, but not how a 
growth of broom should be called a grove ; the broom, or genista, being, 



1 66 THE TEMPEST. 

as Nares observes, a mere shrub, which gives no shade. In support, 
however, of the old reading, it is said that one kind of broom grows to 
the height of a tall man. So do some species of corn ; yet who would 
speak of a grove of corn? Lettsom comments as follows : " The notion 
of disconsolate lovers betaking themselves to groves is common enough 
in poetry : Shakespeare himself has placed Romeo in a sycamore grove 
when Rosaline was cruel ; and we may judge from this the sort of 
grove he would select for a young gentleman in like case. Till it can 
be shown that a growth of broom may be called a grove, it seems idle 
to dispute about the height of the shrub. In Babington's Botany it is 
said to be two and a half or three feet high ; and this is certainly the 
usual height to which it grows on Hampstead Heath, though occa- 
sionally a plant may be found taller : I am told that in Italy it grows 
to the height of six or seven feet ; but that surely is no great matter. 
The defences set up for the old reading appear to me singularly weak." 
I must add that, in the first scene of the play, we have an instance of 
broom evidently misprinted brown in the original ; and I do not see 
why brown might not as easily have been misprinted broom. See note 
on the passage, page 149. 

P. 122. Earth's increase, and foison plenty. — So the second folio: 
the first omits and. The prefix "Cer." also wanting in the original. 

P. 123. So rare a. wonder 'd father and a wife 

Make tins place Paradise. — The original has wise for wife and 
makes for make. The old reading has been stoutly maintained ; but I 
can hardly think that Ferdinand would leave the wife out of such a 
reckoning, especially the wife being Miranda, or the Wonderful. Then 
too wise and Paradise make a disagreeable jingle. See foot-note 25. 

P. 123. You nymphs, calVd Naiads, of the winding brooks, 
With your sedge crowns and ever-harmless looks, 
Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land 
Answer our summons ; j^uno does co??imand. — In the first of 
these lines, the original has windring, which Rowe corrected to wind- 
ing. Some editors read wandering. In the second line, the original 
has "sedg'd crowns." The reading in the text is Walker's, and is also 



CRITICAL NOTES. 167 

found in Collier's second folio. It appears that final d and final e were 
especially apt to be confounded. In the fourth line, the old text has 
your instead of our. Probably repeated by mistake from the line 
before. 

P. 124. This is most strange : your father 1 's in some passion 

That works him strongly. — So Hanmer and Dyce. The origi- 
nal lacks most, which certainly helps the sense, and finishes the verse ; 
still I am not quite sure about it. 

P. 124. You do, my son, look in a moved sort. — The original reads 
" You do look, my son," &c. The reading in the text was proposed by 
Seymour. 

P. 125. And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 

Leave not a rack behind. — So the old editions. Dyce and some 
others print wreck instead of rack ; and Dyce produces several instances 
where the form rack is clearly used for wreck. But I think the sense 
of rack harmonizes best with the context. Thus the expressions, 
" Melted into thin air," " the baseless fabric of this vision," " shall 
dissolve," and " this insubstantial pageant faded," naturally draw into 
the sense of something thinner and more vapoury than is fairly ex- 
pressed by the word wreck. See foot-note 32. 

P. 125. Ferd. Mira. We wish you peace. 

Pros. [To Ariel.] Come tvith a thought ! — I thank ye. 
[Exeunt Ferd. and Mira.] — Ariel, come ! — The original has 
" wish your peace," and " I thank thee Ariel : come." The first cor- 
rection is Walker's, the other Dyce's ; and both seem eminently judi- 
cious. See foot-note 34. 

P. 126. Well, say again, where didst thou leave these varlets? — 
The original lacks Well. 

P. 127. On whom my pains, 

Humanely taken, all are lost, quite lost. — So Walker. The 
original has " all, all lost." Hanmer reads " are all lost." 



1 68 THE TEMPEST. 

P. 128. Nay, good my lord, give me thy favour still. — -The original 
lacks Nay, and thus defeats Caliban of his wonted rhythm, 

P. 129. Let's along, 

And do the murder first. — The original has " Let's aloneT The 
correction is Theobald's, and I think it needs no defence. 



ACT V., SCENE I. 

P. 132. In the same fashion as you gave in charge ; 

Just as you left them ; all are prisoners, sir, 

In the line-grove, &c. — In the second of these lines, the old 
text reads " all prisoners, sir." The Poet could hardly have been so 
indifferent to rhythm as to leave such a gap. Pope reads "all your 
prisoners." The reading in the text is from Collier's second folio. 

P. 132. And the remainder mourning over them, 
Brimful of sorrow and dismay ; but chiefly 
He that you termed "The good old lord, Gojizalo": 
His tears run down his beard, like w'mtex-droJ>s 
From eaves of reeds. — In the third of these lines, the original 
has Him for He, and inserts sir after termed, to the manifest spoiling 
of the metre. — In the fourth line, again, the old text has " winters 
drops." Corrected in the fourth folio. 

P. 134. And ''twixt the green sea and the azure vault 

Set roaring war. — The original has " azur'd vault." See note 
on "With your sedge crowns," page 166. 

P. 135. A solemn air, as the best comforter 
To an unsettled fancy, cure the brains, 

Now useless, boil'd withi}i the skull! — In the first of these 
lines, the old text has and instead of as. But the latter is clearly re- 
quired ; for Prospero certainly means that " a solemn air " is itself 
" the best comforter." Shakespeare is almost classical in his estimate 
of the power of music ; and here he probably had in mind the effect 
of David's harp and voice in charming the evil spirit out of King Saul. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 69 

See 1 Samuel, xvi. 23. — In the second and third lines, again, the original 
has " cure thy brains," and " within thy skull." But Prospero is evidently 
speaking either to all six of the men or else to none of them. If 
he is speaking to them, it should be your — your ; if merely in refer- 
ence to them, it should be either the — the or their — their. The cor- 
rection is Dr. C. M. Ingleby's, and is manifestly right ; though, for my 
part, I should prefer their — their, but that it involves more of literal 
change. The old copies have many clear instances of like error. — 
The original also has boile instead of boiVd, which the sense naturally 
requires. Probably the Poet wrote boild; and here, as in many other 
cases, final d and final e were confounded. See foot-note 10. 



P. 135. thou good Gonzalo, 

My true preserver, &c. — So Walker. The original lacks thou, 
and so has an ugly gap in the verse. " O my good Gonzalo " is the 
reading of some editors. 



P. 136. In a cowslip's bell I lie, — 

There I couch : when owls do cry, 

On the bat's back I do fly 

After Summer merrily. — In the second of these lines, I adopt 
the punctuation proposed by Heath. The original reads " There I 
couch when owls do cry." Heath notes as follows: "If Ariel 'couches 
in the cowslip's bell when owls do cry,' it follows that he couches there 
in Winter ; for that, as Mr. Warburton hath shown, from the authority 
of our Poet himself, as well as from the general notoriety of the fact, 
is the season when owls do cry. How, then, can it consistently be 
said, as it is in the words immediately following, that he constantly 
flies the approach of Winter, by following the Summer in its progress 
to other climates? " — In the fourth line, Theobald changed Summer 
to sunset ; plausibly, as it assimilates the meaning to matter of fact. 
But the Poet ascribes to Ariel and his fellows something of the same 
qualities which the Fairies have, as delineated in A Midsummer- 
Nigh? s Dream. These beings move entirely according to the pleasure 
and impulse of their inner nature, unlimited by any external order of 
facts; "wandering everywhere swifter than the moony sphere," in 



17° THE TEMPEST. 

quest of whatever they have most delight in, or most affinity with. 
Oberon puts it thus : — 

Then my Queen, in silence sad, 
Trip we after the night's shade: 
We the globe can compass soon, 
Swifter than the wandering Moon. 

P« I 37« The master and the boatswain 

Being awaked, enforce them to this place. — So Walker conjec- 
tured, and so the context clearly requires. The original has awake. 
Another instance of d and e confounded, the Poet having probably 
written awakd. 

P. 138. But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, 
I here could pluck his Highness'' frown tipon you, 
And justify you traitors : at this time 
Pit tell no tales. 

Sebas. [Aside to Anto.] The Devil speaks in him. 
Pros. Now> 

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother, &c. — In the last 
line but one, the original has No instead of Now. No must of course 
refer to what Sebastian has just said, " The Devil speaks in him." But 
this is evidently spoken either to himself or to his partner in guilt ; 
and things so spoken are, I think, never supposed to be heard by the 
other persons of the scene. Besides, we naturally want the sense of 
now as a transitional word. The correction was proposed by the late 
Professor Allen, of Philadelphia. 

P. 139. As great to me, as late ; and, portable 

To make the dear loss, &c. — The original has supportable, which 
makes shocking work with the metre. Steevens printed portable, which 
keeps the sense, saves the verse, and is elsewhere used by the Poet. 

"• J 4°' And scarce think 

Their eyes do offices of truth, these words 

Are natural breath. — §0 Capell. The original has "their 
words." But Prospero evidently refers to the words himself is speak- 
ing. See foot-note 30. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 171 

P. I42. Let us not burden our remembrance with 

A heaviness that's gone. — The original has remembrances. Cor- 
rected by Pope. 

P. 143. When we, in all hex frim, freshly beheld 

Otir royal, good, and gallant ship. — The original reads, " Where 
we, in all our trim." The last is Thirlby's correction. 

P. 145. This mis-shaped knave, — 

His mother was a xvitch. — So Pope and Walker. The original 
has " mis-shapen." 

P. 146. This is as strange a thing as e'er I looked on. — The original 
reads " This is a strange thing as," &c. Corrected by Capell. 

P. 147. Where I have hope to see the mtptial 

Of these our dear-beloved solemnized. — The original has "our 
deere-belov'd solemnized" ; which White and Dyce retain. This, it seems 
to me, is pushing conservatism one letter too far. It is true, the Poet 
sometimes has it solemnized ; but then he oftener has it as in the text. 

P. 148. Now my charms are all overthrown, &c. — All Shake- 
spearians, I believe, are pretty much agreed that this Epilogue was 
not written by Shakespeare. The whole texture and grain of the thing 
are altogether unlike him. Any one, who will take pains to compare it 
with the passages of trochaic verse in A Midsummer - A T ighf s Dream, 
must see at once, I think, that the two could not have come from the 
same hand. It cannot be affirmed with positiveness who did write 
the Epilogue. As Mr. White observes, such appendages were very 
apt to be supplied by some second hand ; and in Shakespeare's circle 
of friends and fellow-dramatists there were more than one who might 
well have done this office for him, either with or without his consent ; 
especially as his plays are known to have passed out of his hands into 
the keeping of the theatrical company for which he wrote. Both the 
Prologue and the Epilogue of King Henry VIII. have been noted by 
Johnson and others as decidedly wanting in the right Shakespearian 
taste. 



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